In her imagination Diane saw him whom she had loved so dearly immured in a dungeon without light or air, and dying there in one night, or, more fearful still, lingering on for twenty years, and dying at the last cursing God and man, but more than all Diane the traitress, who with her equivocal and hesitating words had basely betrayed him.
There was no proof that Gabriel wished to slay the king, or would be able to do it, while there was no room for doubt that the bitter enmity of Monsieur de Montmorency would have no mercy on Gabriel.
Diane went over all this in her mind in a few seconds, and when the king finally propounded the direct question to her,—
"Well, Diane, what advice do you give me? Since you are better able than I to form an opinion as to the perils which beset my path, your word shall be my law. Ought I to think no more about Monsieur d'Exmès, or ought I, on the other hand, to busy myself with him exclusively?"
She replied in an agony of terror at his last words, "I have no other counsel to offer your Majesty than that of your own conscience. If any other than a man whom you had offended, Sire, had failed to show proper respect to you, or had basely abandoned you when in danger of your life, you would not, I fancy, have come to ask my advice as to the fit punishment to be meted out to the culprit. Therefore some very weighty motive must have constrained your Majesty to adopt a policy of silence which seems to imply forgiveness. Now I confess that I can see no reason why you should not continue to act as you have begun; for it seems to me that if Monsieur d'Exmès had been capable of meditating a crime against you, he could hardly have expected two fairer opportunities than those which were offered him in a lonely gallery in the Louvre, and in the forest of Fontainebleau on the edge of a precipice—"
"You need say no more, Diane," said Henri; "and I will not ask you another question. You have banished a serious anxiety from my heart, and I thank you sincerely for it, my dear child. Let us say no more about this. Now I shall be able to devote my thoughts freely to our approaching marriage festivities. I desire that they shall be magnificent, and that you shall be as magnificent as they. Diane, do you hear?"
"I beg your Majesty to excuse me," said Diane; "but I was just about to ask leave to absent myself from these festivities. I should much prefer, if I must confess it, to remain here by myself."
"What!" exclaimed the king; "but do you know, Diane, that this will be truly a royal display? There will be games and tournaments, all on the most splendid scale, and I myself shall be one of those who hold the lists against all comers. What pressing affairs can you have to keep you away from such superb spectacles, my darling daughter?"
"Sire," replied Diane, in a tone of the utmost gravity, "I have to pray."
A few minutes later the king quitted Madame de Castro, with his heart relieved of part of its anguish.