"I should say falsely, lady," replied D'Auvergne, "if I said that, since I saw him before, he had not become, when last we met, an altered man. But I was told by those about him, that 'tis within the last year this change has principally taken place."
"Indeed!" said Agnes thoughtfully: "and has it been very great? Stoops he now? He was as upright as a mountain pine, when I left him? Goes he forth to hunt as formerly?"
"He often seeks the chase, lady," answered the count, "as a diversion to his somewhat gloomy thoughts; but I am grieved to say, that age has bent the pine."
Agnes mused for several minutes; and the count remained silent.
"Well, sir," said she at length, "the message--what is it? Gave he no letter?
"None, madam," said the count; "he thought that a message by one who had seen him, and one whose wishes for your welfare were undoubted, might be more serviceable to the purpose he desired."
"My lord, your wishes for my welfare are as undoubted by me as they are by my father," replied the queen, noticing a slight emphasis which D'Auvergne had placed upon the word undoubted; "and therefore I am happy to receive his message from the lips of his friend."
The queen's words were courteous and kind, but her manner was as cold and distant as if she had spoken to a stranger; and D'Auvergne felt hurt that it should be so, though he well knew that her conduct was perhaps the wisest for both.
After a moment's thought, however, he proceeded, to deliver the message wherewith he had been charged by the duke of Istria and Meranie. "Your father, lady," he said, "charged me to give you the following message;--and let me beg you to remember, that, as far as memory serves, I use his own words; for what might be bold, presumptuous, or even unfeeling, in your brother's poor companion in arms, becomes kind counsel and affectionate anxiety when urged by a parent. Your father, lady, bade me say, that he had received a letter from the common father of the Christian church, informing him that your marriage with the noble king Philip was not, and could not be valid, because----"
"Spare the reasons, sir," said Agnes, with a calm voice, indeed, but walking on, at the same time, with that increased rapidity of pace which showed too well her internal agitation,--"spare the reasons, sir! I have heard them before--Indeed, too, too often!--What said my father, more?"