She came down the long gallery, alone. One of the two men who watched her had last seen her, beautiful and shining, “enchantée de la vie,” the brilliant centre of a brilliant court. He was not then, nor ever had been, her admirer; rather was he her critic. But now, as she moved slowly down the empty gallery, the sweep of her dress more audible than the faint tap of her high heels on the polished floor, a thrill that was pain ran through him. Her eyes looked as if they saw nothing around her, out of a face changed and aged beyond all speech—sad, patient, aloof, serene, still proud, so proud indeed that it was clear nothing said or done now, whether by foe or friend, could touch the shrine of suffering of which it was the curtain. The once bright hair above it was grey, but more than ever it was the face of a Queen. Nearer she came and nearer, and seemed not to notice the two men by the wall, taking them perhaps for a couple of curious sightseers, or for some of the guards whose presence she was obliged to tolerate even in her bedchamber. She might have passed them, if Louis de Saint-Ermay had not dropped on one knee, not with intent to stay her, but with bent head, as one kneels at the passage of the Host. The Queen stopped, with a faint and pathetic look of surprise, that showed how rare and perilous were such marks of respect, and Gilbert, his brain in a confusion of pain and pity, heard her say in a voice of ineffable sadness: “What! M. de Saint-Ermay! and are you not gone yet?” “Never, Madame, while I am free to stay,” answered Louis very low. The Queen smiled sadly, and then, shaking her head with something of the air of one who indulges a wilful child, she held out her hand, and he kissed it like a relic. A moment later Gilbert too was bowing low over the same little hand, but of what the Queen said to him, or of what he replied, he heard nothing. Another moment again, and the Galerie de Diane was empty. Himself moved beyond what he could ever have imagined possible, he turned to his cousin. Louis was very pale, and his eyes were sparkling with a rage and devotion alike impotent. “God damn them all to hell!” he said passionately. “Let us go—I can't bear this place!” As he followed his cousin down the great staircase, and out into the Cour Royale, Gilbert had the thought, with which he certainly had not entered the Tuileries that morning, that, had he been in Louis’ place, perhaps he too would have refused to leave the sight of that tragic face, the sound of that proud, sad voice. CHAPTER IX _ET DONA FERENTES_