He was surprised; but again he believed she was probably bringing a message from Joan. He threw open the door of his office. "Come in here," he said. "What is it?"
She held out a letter, and he saw that her hand shook. "Mademoiselle asked me to give you this, your Majesty," she said. "I was to take care that you were alone when you received it."
"Something important then," he said with a laugh.
Crossing the room to the table on which stood the lamp by whose light he had scribbled "Alexis R." on the papers intrusted to Bosko, he opened the envelop, which bore in Joan's handwriting the simple superscription, "Alec," and began to read:
My Dear One:—When Pauline gives you this, I shall have left you forever. I am going from Delgratz, and I shall never see you again. I cannot marry you—but oh, my dear, my dear, I shall love you all my life! Try and forget me. I am acting for the best. Do not write to Paris or endeavor to find me. If it is God's will, we shall never meet again. I can scarcely see what I am writing for my tears. So good-by, my Alec! Be brave! Forgive me, and, in the years to come, try to forget our few days of happiness together.
Yours ever,
Joan.
He stood there stricken, almost paralyzed with the suddenness of the blow, wondering dumbly why Joan's hand should have inflicted it. The frightened Frenchwoman dared not speak or move. She watched him with that impersonal fear so readily aroused in one of her class by the terrifying spectacle of a strong man in his agony. At last he moved listlessly, as though his limbs had just been released from the rack. He held the letter under the lamp again and read it a second time, word for word. He seemed to be forcing himself to accept it as truth. This young King, so valiant, so resourceful, so prompt in action and judgment, could devise no plan, no means of rescue from the abyss. After an interval that neither the man nor the woman could measure, he turned his strained, staring eyes on the shrinking Pauline.
"Have I ever done you any harm?" he said in the low voice of utmost despair.
"Me, monsieur?" she gasped. "You harm me? No, indeed, I was only too proud to think my dear mistress should have won such a husband."