But as he spoke Henri avoided Gabriel's eye; he even turned away, nor did he smile any longer, while Madame de Poitiers's face was beaming.
Gabriel, whom every one thought to see radiant with joy and hope, withdrew with grief and terror at his heart.
All the evening he haunted the neighborhood of the Châtelet.
He regained his courage to some slight extent when time passed without his seeing Monsieur de Montmorency leave the prison.
Then he felt the royal signet on his finger, and recalled the solemn words of Henri II., which left no chance for doubt, and which could not conceal a deception,—"The object of your sublime and holy ambition shall be restored to you."
Courage! The night which still separated Gabriel from the decisive moment seemed more than a year long.
CHAPTER XXIX
PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
What Gabriel thought and what he suffered during those mortal hours God only knows; for when he returned to his own house he said nothing to his retainers, nor even to his nurse. From that moment began an absorbed and concentrated dumb life, so to speak,—a life all action, and very sparing of words, to which he devoted himself strictly from this time on, as if he had tacitly taken vows of silence.
Consequently, the disappointed hopes, energetic resolutions, projects of love or vengeance,—everything, in short, that Gabriel thought or dreamed, or vowed in his own heart that night remained a secret between his noble heart and his God.