“Probably, but I never trust Richelieu. He appears to have fallen into some sort of disgrace since last evening, for de Baillieul is on guard at the council chamber, and I know that he was refused an audience by the Queen-Mother this morning.”
“I could explain that, I think, were there time; but, monsieur, I have a favor to ask. I have an important letter to deliver to Madame de Marcilly. Can you tell me where I could find her?”
He laughed a little as he answered: “I’m afraid I’m not much of a squire of dames, and hardly ever know the order of the day for the ladies-in-waiting. Madame is probably with the Queen-Mother, or perhaps in the gallery overlooking what we call the Queen’s Terrace.”
“Diable!” I exclaimed, with an affectation of cheerfulness, “I know no more of this place than if I were a blind man in a labyrinth. How am I to find her?”
“I’ll guide you as far as I am able,” he said good-naturedly, and, thanking Lorgnac, I followed him as he made his way slowly through the crowd, and eventually into the corridor through which we had passed the night before, when seeking Catherine’s cabinet.
When about the middle of the corridor Lorgnac stopped before a door.
“This will take you into the gallery,” he said. “You will find little Crequi in waiting at the other end, and he will tell you more than I can. I never venture there, so now say au revoir!”
With a word or so of thanks for his kindness, I put my hand to the door, and, passing through it, found myself in the gallery. It stretched along a wing of the palace overlooking a terrace laid out as a garden, which hung over the cloisters of the courtyard beneath. I had scarce taken ten steps when a little burst of laughter came up to me from the terrace, and with it my own name pronounced in a woman’s voice. Glancing out through the window, I saw, seated on a rustic bench immediately beneath me, two ladies, wrapped in long cloaks, for the day was cold. The one was La Limeuil, the other the woman over whom my life was wrecked. I stood for a moment watching them—it was only on one of them that my eyes were fixed, and as I looked on those clear-cut, delicate features, and the limpid blue eyes, and the rippling flaxen curls that escaped from her silken hood, all the love I thought was gone came back, and I stood there, trembling, and all but unable to move.
That face could never have played the traitor! No! I had misjudged it. I was wrong, a hundred times wrong. It was not for me to bring sorrow to those eyes, so honest and true—I who had escaped but by a hand’s breadth from shadowing them with eternal sorrow. In that moment I forgot my vengeance, forgot all. I was only conscious of the fact that I was near her. I rested my hand on the marble balustrade and looked. I would draw back. I would hold fast by the vows I had sworn to myself on that night when I spurred from the gates of Paris, leaving, as I thought, my sin behind me; and even as my mind worked so, the other woman, Isabel de Limeuil, spoke, and speech and answer struck me like a blow on the face.
“As I was saying, I saw him, your old friend, de Vibrac. Is it true that he weds Favras’ daughter, that little Yvonne de Mailly?”