The duke shook his head. "Let not ill-advised heroism tempt you to defy your legions of accusers. Be you innocent or guilty, you are prejudged, and will be condemned. Believe me, the danger is urgent, and it were sheer imbecility to confront it."
"You say the king has signed?" replied she, with a vacant stare. Then clasping her hands, she burst into a flood of tears, repeating o'er and o'er the piteous words, "Oh no! No! No! It cannot be! It cannot be!"
"Nevertheless, he has done it; done it at the instigation of Louvois and De Montespan. But mark me well, and you too, abbe—listen to what I am about to say. The king himself it was who sent me hither to warn you; it is he who urges you to flight. That you may have time to escape, the lettre de cachet is not to go into effect until to-morrow morning. But the morrow is close at hand: hark!—the clock strikes eleven, and you have but one hour. If after midnight you are found within the gates of Paris, your doom is certain. The spies of Louvois are close at hand; they watch before your palace-gates, and await the twelfth stroke of the iron tongue that speaks from the towers of Notre Dame, to force their way into the very room wherein we stand. If they pass the threshold of the palace you are irretrievably lost!"
The countess spoke not a word in reply. They scarcely knew whether she had understood the terrible import of the duke's appeal. She had remained motionless, almost breathless; her face white as death, her large orbs distended to their utmost, gazing, not upon the tangible objects that were before them, but upon some fearful pageant that was passing within the shadowy precincts of her soul.
Her lips began to move, and she muttered incoherent words. "Ah! is it so?" said she, almost inaudibly. "The end of that bright dream! The philter! What!" cried she with sudden energy, "he warns me? He grants me—one—one hour!" And then, overpowered by the reality of her supreme desolation, she opened her arms, and looked defiantly above, as if invoking the wrath of that Heaven which had forsaken her.
"Olympia," said the duke, touching her arm, "you have but three- quarters of an hour to quit Paris."
"Dear mother," implored Eugene, "decide quickly whether you go or remain."
She shuddered, and, with a deep sigh, suffered her arms to fall listlessly at her side.
"I must drink of this chalice of humiliation," said she, mournfully.
"I must fly."
A groan of anguish broke from the depths of Eugene's suffering heart, while a strange look shot athwart the countenance of the duke. The groan was that of faith that faltered; the glance was that of doubt made certainty.