CHAPTER XIII.
A TRAITOR.
THE Queen-mother sits alone; a look of care overshadows her face; her prominent eyes are fixed and glassy. From her window she can gaze at an old familiar scene, the terrace and parterre bordered by lime walks, planted by Francis I., where she has romped in many a game of cache-cache with him.
Presently she rises and summons an attendant from the antechamber.
“Call hither to me Maître Avenelle,” says she to the dainty page who waits her command.
Avenelle, a lawyer and a Huguenot, is the friend of Barri, Seigneur de la Renaudie, the nominal leader of the Huguenot plot; of which the Duc de Guise has been warned by the Catholics of England. Avenelle has, for a heavy bribe, been gained over in Paris by the Duke’s secretary, Marmagne; he has come to Amboise to betray his friends “of the religion” by revealing to the Queen-mother all he knows of this vast Huguenot conspiracy, secretly headed by the Prince de Condé and by Admiral Coligni.
Avenelle enters and bows low before the Queen who is seated opposite to him at a writing-table. He is sallow and wasted-looking, with a grave face and an anxious eye; a tremor passes over him as he suddenly encounters the dark eyes of Catherine fixed upon him.
“Have you seen the Duc de Guise?” says she haughtily, shading her face with her hand the better to observe him, as he stands before her, motionless, and pale with fear.
“Yes, madame,” replies he, again humbly bowing; “I come now from his chamber, whither I was conducted by M. Marmagne, his secretary.”
“And you have confided to him all you know of this plot?”
“I have, madame, all.”