Lucette was silent for a moment or two, and turned a little pale; and Edward asked, in a low tone, "What ladies are there here in the castle?"
"None," said Lucette. "Except my maid, we are all alone. Now I understand: I think I see why the cardinal took every one else away and insisted on my staying."
"Assuredly," replied Edward, "because you are my wife, Lucette, and he did not wish that we should be separated any more."
Her face was now as rosy as the dawn, and her breath came thick with agitation.
"You are mine, Lucette! are you not mine?" said Edward,—"my own, my wife, my beloved?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" sobbed Lucette, casting herself upon his bosom,—"my husband, my own dear husband!" And they parted no more.
CHAPTER LI.
The famous peace of Alais, which terminated, during the reign of Louis XIII., the struggles of the Protestants of France for a distinct organization and left them nothing but an insecure toleration, was concluded on the 27th of June, 1629, a few days after the reunion of Edward and Lucette. None can doubt that Richelieu was politically right in asserting and enforcing the sovereign authority over a body of men who had made religious differences a pretext for rebellion and a continual source of exaction and menace. Nor can any one accuse him of having violated his word in any degree to the Huguenots. They were suffered to follow the forms of their religion in peace; their peculiar tenets formed no obstacle to their admission into the highest offices in France; and the Duc de Rohan himself was employed in high and delicate negotiations, and ultimately fell in the military service of the monarch against whom he had so often fought.