"Your Highness honors me by recalling my devotion."
"Very good. We will make him a colonel in our army if he is only a captain, and a brigadier-general if he is only a colonel; for he is faithful to us, I presume?"
"He was at Lens, madame," Claire replied with a craft in which she had lately become proficient by virtue of her diplomatic experiences.
"Excellent! Now there is but one thing left for me to learn," said the princess.
"What is that, madame?"
"The name of the very fortunate gentleman who already possesses the heart, and will soon possess the hand, of the loveliest warrior in my whole army."
Claire, driven into her last intrenchments, was summoning all her courage to pronounce the name of Canolles, when suddenly they heard a horse gallop into the court-yard, and in another moment the confused murmur of many voices, indicating the arrival of important news.
The princess ran to the window. A courier, begrimed with dust and reeking with perspiration, had just leaped from his horse, and was surrounded by a number of persons, to whom he seemed to be giving the details of some occurrence; and as the words fell from his lips, his listeners were overwhelmed with grief and consternation. The princess could not contain her curiosity, but opened the window and called: "Let him come up!"
The messenger looked up, recognized the princess, and darted to the stairway. In a few moments he was ushered into her apartment, covered with mud as he was, with disordered hair, and a hoarse, parched voice.
"Pray pardon me, your Highness," said he, "for appearing before you in my present condition! But I am the bearer of news at the mere utterance of which doors give way; Vayres has capitulated!"