The countess repeated the clew so emphatically that the marshal, always afraid his secrets would leak out, especially when he was conspiring to obtain the government, interrupted the lady by these words:
“Hist, there is the King!”
“In the walnut copse, yes. Let us stay here while the prince goes to him. You will have him all to yourself.”
“Your kindness overwhelms me,” said the prelate who gallantly kissed the lady’s hand.
“But the King will be worried at not seeing you.”
“I want to tease him!”
The duke alighted with the countess, as light as a schoolgirl, and the carriage rolled swiftly away to set down the cardinal on the knoll where the King was looking all about him to see his darling.
But she, drawing the duke into the covert, said:
“Heaven sent the cardinal to put us on the track of that magician who told my fortune so true.”
“I met one—at Vienna, where I was run through the body by a jealous husband. I was all but dead when my magician came up and cured my wound with three drops of an elixir, and brought me to life with three more imbibed.”