She held out her arms, he took her to his heart and bowed his shamed head on her shoulder; but after a very little while he put her away.
"Leave me now!"
"This thing must be done at once—to-night—I cannot tell how long they can hold the gates——"
"I must go out," said Charles, with utmost weariness; "get me a light, my dear, my beloved."
She found the flint and tinder and, with deftness and expedition, lit the lamp of crystal and silver gilt which stood on the King's private bureau.
As the soft, gracious flame illumined the room, the King, who was leaning against the tapestry like a sick man, looked at once towards the fatal paper and beside it the pen and ink dish ready.
The Queen stood waiting; her face was all blotted and swollen with weeping; she looked a frail and piteous figure; her youth seemed suddenly in one day dead, and her beauty already a thing of yesterday.
"It is well I love thee," said Charles, "otherwise what I do would make hell for me. Oh, if I had not loved thee, never, never would I have done this thing!"
"We shall forget it," answered the Queen, "and we shall live," she added, straining her hoarse voice to a note of passion, "to avenge ourselves."