"It is as your sister in Jesus Christ, doubtless, Monsieur, that you call by that title her who yesterday was still Madame de Castro?"
"What do you mean, Madame? Great God! what do mean?" asked Gabriel, with a shudder, as he rose to his feet.
Diane de Poitiers, without replying directly to his question, addressed her daughter:—
"The time has arrived, my child, I think, to reveal to you the secret of which I spoke yesterday, and which, in my opinion, my bounden duty forbids me to conceal from you any longer."
"Oh, what can it be?" cried Gabriel, distractedly.
"My child," continued Madame de Poitiers, calmly, "as I have told you, it was not simply to give you my blessing that I have emerged from the retirement in which I have been living for nearly two years, thanks to Monsieur de Montgommery. Pray do not consider my words ironical, Monsieur," she added in a tone of bitter irony in reply to a gesture of Gabriel's. "In truth, I am extremely obliged to you for having torn me away, with or without violence, from an impious and corrupt world. I am happy now! The divine grace has touched me, and my whole heart is filled with the love of God. To show my gratitude to you, I wish to save you from the commission of a sin,—a crime, it may be."
"Oh, what can it be?" It was Sister Bénie who asked the question now with fast-beating heart.
"My child," continued Diane de Poitiers, in her infernal, cool tones, "I imagine that I might yesterday, with a single word, have arrested upon your lips the sacred vows you were about to utter. But was it for me, miserable sinner that I am, and so happy to be free from earthly bonds,—was it for me to steal from God a soul which was about to confide itself to Him, free and pure? No! and I held my peace."
"I dare not guess! I dare not!" muttered Gabriel.
"To-day, my child," the ex-favorite resumed, "I break my silence, because I see from Monsieur de Montgommery's grief and earnestness that you still possess his entire soul. Now he must make up his mind to forget you; he must do it. But if he continues to soothe himself with the fancy that you may be his sister, the daughter of the Comte de Montgommery, he can allow his memory to return to you now and then without remorse. That would be a crime! —a crime to which I, having been converted since yesterday, do not propose to be accessory. You are not the sister of Monsieur le Comte, but are really the daughter of King Henri II., whom Monsieur le Comte so unfortunately slew in that fatal tournament."