"When does he come?"
"At nightfall. Knowing that Mynheer keeps his bed of a quinsy, and Madame stays with him, while Francbois has gone to see his friends at the Jesuits' College----"
"Ah! his friends at the Jesuits' College," the Comtesse repeated quietly.
"Monsieur de Belleville will come in by the garden gate. It may be, he says, that he will have discovered some chance, or, at least, have conceived some scheme whereby we shall be enabled to leave the city and make our way to the Allied Forces."
"Does he know my mission, the reason why I so ardently desire to see Lord Marlborough? Does he know why I so long to cast myself at that commander's feet--to beg him, to implore him on my knees to send the long-promised aid of England to those of our persecuted faith in Languedoc? To send it now--now--when France is attacked on all sides, when England and Holland are hemming her in with bands of steel in the north, when Prince Eugene is hurling his armies against her in Italy. For now is the time. Now! Now!"
"He knows," Sylvia said, touching her friend's hand gently. "I have told him."
"And does he know the rest? All. Have you told him that?"
"Oh, do not speak of it! Do not think of it! Ah, Radegonde!" addressing the other by her Christian name. "Do not speak of it, I entreat you."
"Not speak of it! Not think of it!" the Comtesse exclaimed, while as she did so her eyes were wet with tears, her cheeks being also as wet with them as leaves bedashed with rain, her whole frame being shaken with emotion. "As well bid me not dream of it night by night, nor let my existence be broken with unhappy memories. Not think of my father's death--my father, an old, grey-haired, feeble man!--in the dungeons of Nîmes--my father, who, had he not thus died, would have been broken on the wheel. Not think of that! Nor, perhaps of my husband----"
"Oh, Radegonde!"