"Ah, is it you, Count?" said she. "I am indeed happy to see you once more, my faithful friend, who wept with me for my poor dead king. But why have you never spoken to me, if you were with these other gentlemen?"
"I felt that I must see you without being seen, Madame," replied Gabriel. "In my loneliness I could better collect my remembrances, and enjoy more fully the pleasure that it gave me to perform so grateful a duty."
"Thanks once more for this final proof of your attachment, Monsieur le Comte," said Mary. "I should be glad if I might show my gratitude otherwise than by mere words. I can do nothing more, unless it please you to accompany me to my poor Scotland with Messieurs Damville and Brantôme—"
"Ah, that would be my most devout wish, Madame!" cried Gabriel; "but another duty binds me to France. One who is dearer to me than life, and consecrated in my eyes, and whom I have not seen for more than two years, is expecting me at this moment."
"Do you mean Diane de Castro?" asked Mary, eagerly.
"Yes, Madame," said Gabriel. "By a letter I received last month she requested me to be at St. Quentin to-day, August 15. I shall not be with her until to-morrow; but whatever may have been her motive in summoning me, she will forgive me, I am sure, when she learns that I did not desire to leave you until you were actually leaving France."
"Dear Diane!" remarked Mary, pensively; "yes, she also loved me well, was like a sister to me. Hold, Monsieur de Montgommery; take this ring to her as a remembrance from me, and go to her as quickly as you can. She may need your help; and when her welfare is concerned, I do not wish to detain you. Adieu! adieu, all my dear friends! They wait for me, and I must go,—alas! I must."
She tore herself away from the arms of those who would still have held her, stepped aboard the small boat, and was at once transferred to Monsieur de Mévillon's galley, followed by the envied gentlemen who were to go with her to Scotland.
But even as Scotland could not supply the void left by France in Mary's heart, so those who accompanied her could not make her forget those she had left behind; indeed, she seemed to love the latter the more dearly. Standing at the stern of the galley, she never ceased to wave her handkerchief, wet with tears, to the kinsfolk and friends whom she left upon the shore.
At last they were in the open sea: and Mary's eyes were drawn in spite of herself toward a vessel which was just entering the harbor she had quitted, and which her gaze followed longingly in envy of its destination. Suddenly the vessel pitched forward, as if she had struck beneath the water-line; and trembling from stem to stern, she began to sink, amid the piercing shrieks of her crew. It was all done so rapidly that she was out of sight before Monsieur de Mévillon had time to send a skiff to her assistance. For an instant a few heads could be seen struggling in the water near the spot where the vessel had gone down, but they disappeared one by one before they could be reached, although the men pulled lustily; and the skiff returned without having saved a single one of the poor wretches.