"Oh, look at me once more!" cried Eugene. "Laura, Laura, speak to me! O God! it cannot be that thou must die!"
She made no answer, but her fast-closing eyes were fixed upon his. He bent closer and closer, and opened his arms, with a vain longing to fold her to his heart. But he durst not! His embrace might extinguish the feeble spark of life that glimmered yet for his momentary consolation.
But his tears fell upon her face, and awakened her failing senses. She spoke again, and the melody of her voice was like the faint notes of an AEolian harp.
"Do not weep," murmured she. "I was happy. I will be near to thee in spirit. I—"
A last sigh fluttered from her lips, and the AEolian harp was silenced forever!
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BETROTHAL.
The Duchess of Orleans sat weeping in her cabinet, and yet she had been several times reminded by her tire-women that monsieur awaited her in the drawing-room. She held in her hand a letter—the apparent cause of her unwillingness to move.
"It has terminated as I feared," thought she; "her short-lived happiness has been purchased with her life. To think that her relentless foe should have had no mercy upon her youth and beauty! And so it is—to the good are apportioned tribulation and trials—to the wicked, prosperity and long life! God is merciful, and allows to those who are destined to burn in hell their short season of triumph on earth. But I, who am no saint, will avenge my dear child's murder, by exposing its instigators to public scorn. My poor, darling Laura! God only knows how I am to bring it about, but He will surely prompt the right words at the right moment. And now to discharge the tiresome duties of the sacrifice I made to the shameless exaction of Louis XIV.! Now for the act that befouls the escutcheon of France with the blood of De Montespan's bastard!"
She folded her letter, and, putting it in her bosom, called with her stentorian lungs, for Katharina.