St. Real entered not again the lighted halls in which the leaders and partisans of the League were assembled; but he paused for a moment in the open air, after the carriage which bore Eugenie de Menancourt towards her solitary home had driven out of the courtyard and passed away down the echoing streets. A momentary burst of artillery and small arms came, borne upon the wind, from a distance, as the indefatigable Henry of Navarre roused the Parisian garrisons with an _alerte_ from the side of Meudon: but the mind of St. Real was too deeply busied with other thoughts for the thunder of the cannon to awake in his heart the martial and chivalrous spirit that lay within. The discovery which he had made of his own feelings was, in every respect, painful; and the insight which he had gained into those of Eugenie de Menancourt herself--although there is ever a sweet and soothing balm in the consciousness of being loved--was hardly less bitter. The idea of entering into rivalry with his cousin--of attempting to deprive one who confided in him of the hand of his promised bride--the idea of seeking, or even receiving happiness himself at the expense of that of Philip d'Aubin, found not harbour in the bosom of St. Real for one single moment. Deeply and severely did he blame himself for having suffered such feelings to grow up in his heart as the occurrences of that night had discovered to his own sight; and still more bitterly did he reproach himself for having allowed his feelings to carry him away as they had lately done. Even the degree of regard with which he saw that Eugenie de Menancourt looked on him was an additional reproach; for he well knew that that regard could not have been obtained without conduct on his own part which, although involuntary, he looked upon as a betrayal of his cousin's confidence. St. Real was not a man, however, to waste upon fruitless regrets those powers of mind which should be employed in forming and executing noble resolutions. He grieved bitterly for what was past, but he grieved only with the purpose of shaping his conduct differently for the future; and, as he turned again to enter the Hotel de Guise, it was with the full determination of never seeing Eugenie de Menancourt again, till the fate of Philip d'Aubin, as far as it was connected with hers, was fixed beyond all recall.