"It is I, Madam," replied the voice of the Duchess de Rouvré's maid.
"Then wait a moment, Mariette," replied Clémence, "and I will open the door. She rose, put on a dressing gown, and by the light of the lamp which still stood unextinguished on the table, she raised and concealed, in a small casket, two letters which she had left open, and which bore evident signs of having been wept over before she retired to rest. The one was in the clear free handwriting of youth and strength; the other was in characters, every line of which spoke the feeble hand of age, infirmity, or sickness. When that was done, she opened the door which was locked, and admitted the Duchess's maid, who was followed into the room by her own attendant Maria, who usually slept in a little chamber hard by.
"What is the matter, Mariette?" demanded the young lady. "I can scarcely say that I have closed my eyes ere I am again disturbed."
"I am sorry, Mademoiselle, to alarm you," replied the woman; "but Maria would positively not wake you, so I was obliged to do it, for the Duke was sent for just as he was going to bed, and after remaining for two hours with the King has returned, and given immediate orders to prepare for a long journey. The Duchess sent me to let you know that such was the case, and that the carriages would be at the door in less than two hours."
"Do you know whither they are going," demanded Clémence, "and if I am to accompany them?"
"I know nothing from the Duke or the Duchess, Mademoiselle," replied the woman, "but the Duke's valet said that we were going either to Brittany or Poitou, for my lord had brought away a packet from the King addressed to somebody in those quarters; and you are going certainly, Mademoiselle, for the Duchess told me to tell you so, and the valet says that it is on account of you we are going; for that the Chevalier came back with my lord the Duke, and when he parted with him, said, 'Tell Clémence, she shall hear from me soon.'"
Clémence mused, but made no answer; and when in about an hour after, she descended to the saloon of the hotel, she found every thing in the confusion of departure, and the Duc de Rouvré standing by the table, at which his wife was seated, waiting for the moment of setting out, with a face wan, indeed, and somewhat anxious, but not so sorrowful or dejected as perhaps Clémence expected to see.
"I fear, my dear Duke," she said, approaching him and leaning her two hands affectionately upon his arm, "I fear that you, who have been to your poor Clémence a father indeed, are destined to have even more than a father's share of pains and anxieties with her. I am sure that all this to-night is owing to me, or to those that are dear to me, and that you have fallen under the King's displeasure on account of the rash steps of him whom I cannot yet cease to love."
"Not at all, my sweet Clémence; not at all, my sweet child," said the old nobleman, kissing her hand with that mingled air of gallant respect and affection which he always showed towards her. "I do not mean to say, that your fair self has nothing to do with this business in any way, but certainly not in that way. It is about another business altogether, Clémence, that we are ordered to retire from the court; but not in disgrace, my dear young friend, we are by no means in disgrace. The King is perfectly satisfied that you have had no share in all the business of poor Albert of Morseiul; and when I told him how bitterly and deeply grieved you were, and how struck to the heart you seemed to have been, when you heard that the Count had fled to join the rebels in Poitou, he told me to bid you console yourself, saying, that he would find you another and a better husband soon."
Clémence's eyes were bent down upon the ground with an expression of grief and pain; but she looked up in a moment, and said, "Is it permitted me to ask you, my lord, how I am connected with this sudden removal?"