The duchess looked about to see if there were not at hand some weapon with which she could silence the goldsmith's tongue forever. "Corresponded?" echoed the king. "Yes, corresponded; and the most extraordinary thing is that the subject of this correspondence between Madame la Duchesse d'Etampes and the humble carver's apprentice was love." "The proofs, master! you have proofs, I trust!" cried the king, in a rage. "O mon Dieu! yes, Sire," replied Benvenuto. "Your Majesty must understand that I should not have allowed myself to form such suspicions without proofs." "Produce them instantly, then," said the king. "When I say that I have them, I am in error: your Majesty had them a moment since." "I!" cried the king. "And Madame de Poitiers has them now." "I!" cried Diane. "Yes," rejoined Benvenuto, who, amid the king's wrath, and the hatred and terror of the two most powerful women in the world, was perfectly cool and complacent. "Yes, for the proofs are in the lily." "In the lily?" cried the king, snatching the flower from the hands of Diane de Poitiers, and examining it with a careful scrutiny, in which love of art had no share. "In this lily?" "Yes, Sire, in the lily," Benvenuto repeated. "You know that it is so, madame," he continued in a meaning tone, toward the gasping duchess. "Let us come to terms," she whispered; "Colombe shall not marry D'Orbec." "That is not enough," returned Cellini; "Ascanio must marry Colombe." "Never!" exclaimed Madame d'Etampes. Meanwhile the king was turning the fatal lily over and over in his fingers, his suspense and wrath being the more poignant in that he dared not express them openly. "The proofs are in the lily! in the lily!" he repeated; "but I can see nothing in the lily." "Because your Majesty does not know the secret of opening it." "There is a secret. Show it me, messire, on the instant, or rather--" François made a movement as if to crush the flower, but both women cried out, and he checked himself. "Oh Sire! it would be a pity," cried Diane; "such a charming toy! Give it to me, Sire, and I promise you that if there is a secret I will find it." Her slender, active fingers, to which hatred lent additional subtlety, passed over all the rough places on the jewel, felt in all the hollows, while the Duchesse d'Etampes, half fainting, followed with haggard eyes her investigations, which for a moment were without result. But at last, whether by good luck, or a rival's instinct of divination, Diane touched the precise spot on the stalk. The flower opened. The two women cried out again at the same moment; one with joy, the other with dismay. The duchess darted forward to tear the lily from Diane's hand, but Benvenuto held her back with one hand, while with the other he showed her the letter which he had taken from its hiding place. A swift glance at the flower showed her that the hiding place was empty.