As, however, the words fell from his lips the attitude of De Louvois, while he leant nearer to him, showed that he desired to speak.
Whereupon the King said, "You know her, De Louvois?"
"Sire," the minister answered, "La Reynie, your Surintendant de Police, knows her. He has signalised her to me as dangerous."
"Who is she?"
"She is Louise Belleau de Cortonne. Her husband was Jacques de Mallorties, Seigneur de Villers and Boudéville. Villers and Boudéville are almost akin to Villiers-Bordéville. That husband died mysteriously by poison, she was tried at Rouen for his murder but acquitted. Now----"
"Yes, now?"
"She is a spy in the pay of either Holland or Spain or both, and she loves secretly--the--man--whom--we suspect."
"Dieu!" the King exclaimed, exhibiting, however, as little agitation as, in all the great crises of his long reign--the plots and conspiracies against his life, the combinations of half Europe against him, the treachery of those whom he had enriched and advanced, as well as the treachery, in one extreme case at least, of the women he had loved--he was ever known to show. Turning, however, to Humphrey now, Louis said in a voice that was absolutely calm:--
"Was any great name mentioned in this talk you overheard? Any name so great in all that pertains to it that, almost, it casts a shadow over, or pretends to cast a shadow over, the name of Louis de Bourbon?"
"Your Majesty," Humphrey whispered, "such a name was mentioned, hinted at. But--but----"