Vaudemont's page was conducting me to my rooms, when one of the Duke's gentlemen in waiting, M. René, who wore the cross of Malta on his dark velvet cloak, met me in the corridor, with a message to the effect that Mademoiselle de Lorraine, having heard that I was soon to leave Nanci, desired that I would favour her with an interview of a few minutes in the Duke's apartments. Fortunately the corridor was dimly lighted; otherwise he of the cloak and Maltese cross would have remarked how I changed colour at this announcement. For a moment, a fierce suspicion flashed upon me, that this request in the name of Marie Louise was but a deadly lure of Pappenheim and De Bitche; I had heard of such snares often, in that time, and in those lands of public and private assassination. I was without pistols, but to hesitate was impossible, and with a bow of assent, I said-- 'You mentioned the apartments of Monseigneur?' 'Yes, monsieur.' 'Is the Duke there?' 'No; he has accompanied M. de Vaudemont to parade a body of soldiers outside the palace.' 'I am ready, monsieur--lead on,' said I, in a voice broken by the mingled nature of my emotions and all that had passed; and while feeling my heart sink at the prospect of an interview with Marie Louise alone, it appeared to me that the voice and manner of my conductor were characterised by a strange sadness and sorrow. I stood before her, in one of the loftily-ceiled and magnificent apartments of that princely dwelling, her father's ducal palace; and the flush of the summer noon-day's sun streamed through a painted casement full upon the outline of her faultless head and form, edging with a dazzling brightness the golden tresses of her hair, the curve of her delicate neck and shoulders, and the folds of her white brocade, that fell so gracefully around her. All conscious that we breathed the same atmosphere again, and that I was near her, I approached with averted eye, until I might have touched her, and then our glances met--but oh how timidly and sorrowfully! Yet I gazed full upon her, for her soft blue eyes were the bright stars in which, with all the fond astrology of love, I strove to read my future destiny. But though their gentleness remained, her bearing was changed. It was no longer the timid diffidence, which was characteristic of the winning Nicola, that I read in them now; but the clear and full yet chaste expression of a woman of undoubted rank, and of one who had been long accustomed to her high position; and pausing, I bowed low, with a humility that was half mockery, while with a sigh of bitterness and sorrow, I remembered that I stood before my lost love, the daughter of Duke Charles IV.--Mademoiselle Marie Louise, of Lorraine and Bar-le-Duc, she whom I believed to have made my honest passion the plaything of an hour.