As he spoke, he advanced a few paces towards the garden, then paused, and drawing forth a scrap of parchment, he put it into Guerin's hand. "I found that on my table at Gournay," said the king. "'Tis strange! Some enemy of the Count d'Auvergne has done it!"
Guerin looked at the paper, and beheld, written evidently in the hand of the canon of St. Berthe's, which he well knew; "Sir king, beware of the Count d'Auvergne!" The minister, however, had no time to make any reply; for the sound of the voices in the garden began again to approach, and Philip instantly recognised the tones of Agnes de Meranie.
"'Tis the queen," said he,--"'Tis Agnes!" and as he spoke that beloved name, all the cares and sorrows that, in the world, had gathered round his noble brow, like morning clouds about the high peak of some proud mountain, rolled away, like those same clouds before the risen sun, and his countenance beamed with more than usual happiness.
Guerin had by no means determined how to act, though he decidedly leaned towards the scheme of the canon of St. Berthe's; but the radiant gladness of Philip's eye at the very name of Agnes de Meranie, strangely shook all the minister's conclusions, and he remained more than ever in doubt.
"Hark!" cried Philip, in some surprise. "There is the voice of a man!--To whom does she speak? Know you, Guerin?"
"I believe--I believe, sire," replied the minister, really embarrassed and undecided how to act,--"I believe it is the Count d'Auvergne."
"You believe!--you believe!" cried the king, the blood mounting into his face, till the veins of his temples swelled out in wavy lines upon his clear skin. "The Count d'Auvergne! You hesitate--you stammer, sir bishop!--you that never hesitated in your days before. What means this?--By the God of heaven! I will know!"--and drawing forth the key of the postern, he strode towards it. But at that moment the sound of the voices came nearer and nearer--It was irresistible--The king paused.
Agnes was speaking, and somewhat vehemently. "Once for all, beau sire d'Auvergne," she said, "urge me no more; for, notwithstanding all you say--notwithstanding all my own feelings in this respect, I must not--I cannot--I will not--quit my husband. That name alone, my husband, were enough to bind me to him by every duty; and I will never quit him!"
What were the feelings of Philip Augustus as he heard such words, combined with the hesitation of his minister, with the warning he had received, and with the confused memory of former suspicions! The thoughts that rushed through his brain had nearly driven him to madness. "She loves me not!" he thought. "She loves me not--after all I have done, and sacrificed for her! She is coldly virtuous--but she loves me not;--she owns, her feelings take part with her seducer!--but she will not leave me, for duty's sake!--Hell and fury! I, that have adored her! She loves me not!--Oh God! she loves me not!--But he,--he--shall not escape me! No,--I will wring his heart of its last drop of blood! I will trample it under my feet!"
His wild straining eye,--the almost bursting veins of his temples,--the clenching of his hands,--but more, the last words, which had found utterance aloud--showed evidently to Guerin the dreadfully over-wrought state of the king's mind; and, casting himself between Philip and the postern as he rushed towards it, he firmly opposed the monarch's passage, kneeling at his feet, and clasping his knees in his still vigorous arms.