"Madame, it is nearly morning. You must go."
Looking up at him, she smiled—as she had sometimes used to do. "Not yet," she said, with pretty decision.
"Not yet! Mon Dieu! what can you do? Why do you stay?"
"Because in my last hours I wish to be with you," she said, softly and lightly, with old-time playful tenderness.
In spite of himself this manner influenced him as no other would have done. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and returned, with a gallant air: "Madame, I should wish to assist you with your cloak and mask; but if you have anything to ask of me, first—"
She sprang lightly to her feet, went to him, and placed her hands on his shoulders. He felt the force in her merely by her touch. It seemed as though fire from her fingers were trickling down through his flesh to his heart.
"Yes, you are right; I have something to ask, something to tell. You have heard it before, but this last time you must learn it well, and must remember it. François—I love you. In heaven or in hell, wherever I go, I shall love you. I will not forget—and you shall not. This is the last night here. But—out, somewhere—in the infinite—I wait for you. Now, sit here."
She pushed him, gently, inflexibly, over to the chair whence she had risen. Then she passed to the table, where stood the two candles that lighted the room. Her great gray eyes fastened themselves burningly, steadily, upon those of de Bernis. Under the gaze he sat still, fascinated. "Victorine—you are mad," he murmured once, vaguely.
Hearing the words, she smiled at him, but never moved her eyes. At length, when he had become passively expectant, she lifted her hand. "Remain there—do not move—" she whispered. Then her fingers moved over the candle-flames. They flared and went out. There was a sound of rustling garments, a faintly murmured word from the man, a long breath, and then silence, heavy, absolute, in the thick darkness.
It lasted long. All about that room, for miles in the blackness, the great city lay sleeping through the hour before dawn. The lights of the Hôtel de Ville were out. King and valet alike rested. Mme. d'Etioles and Marie Leczinska had forgotten triumph and trouble. Richelieu, devil and monk, lay abed like an honest man. And Deborah de Mailly, under her canopy, dreamed, in the Versailles apartment, of the fresh quiet of her room at Trevor Manor, the golden dawn over the Chesapeake, and the lapping of the river against the banks that were lined with drooping willows and peach-trees.