"Heavens!" exclaims Madame de Noailles, turning up her eyes, "no one is safe, unless they are allies of Cardinal Mazarin."
"An hour afterwards,"—and the Duchesse de Chevreuse raises her handkerchief to her eyes,—"I received an order to quit Paris for Tours. Alas, I have not deserved it!"
"It is the Cardinal," cries Madame de Noailles. "He will drive out all her old friends; they are inconvenient——"
While she speaks the door opens, and Mademoiselle de Hautefort enters the saloon, unannounced. She is bathed in tears; her eyes are swollen with excessive weeping; she cannot repress her sobs. The two ladies rise, and endeavour to sooth her; but her passionate sorrow is not to be appeased. For some time she cannot utter a word. Madame de Chevreuse hung over her affectionately.
"Dearest friend," she says, kissing her, "I guess what has happened. You are exiled; so am I. Come with me into Touraine; let us comfort each other until better days."
"Oh, speak not to me of better days," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "They can never come to me. My dear, dear mistress, you have broken my heart!" and she bursts into a fresh passion of tears.
The Duchesse de Chevreuse sits down beside her and chafes her hand. Madame de Noailles, who sees in the departure of these two ladies a chance of greater promotion and increased confidence for herself, forms her countenance into an expression of concern she does not in the least feel.
"My dear friend," says Madame de Chevreuse, endeavouring to calm the agony of grief which shook the whole frame of Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "let us share our sorrow."
"The Queen must think herself rich in friends, to cast away such devoted servants," observes Madame de Noailles sententiously, contemplating the group through her eye-glass. "Do speak, Mademoiselle de Hautefort."
She had gradually become more collected, and her violent sobs had ceased; but now and then her bosom heaves, as bitter recollections of the past float through her mind.