Dame Tillery, who had been all the while eyeing the rouleau of gold askance, broke into an approving smile, and called aloud for one of the men she had left in the public room, whom she ordered to take charge of the money, and see that it was properly bestowed in her strong coffer; then she turned to address the page again, but he was gone. “Zamara.” The dwarf started up and opened the door through which the page came in haste. “Zamara, I have failed; the ring is on her finger, but I cannot get it off. Oh, Zamara! how often I have wished that wretched man had never crossed my path!” “It was a great misfortune, my lady. Nothing seems to have gone well with us since that terrible ring was taken from his finger.” “If we could only get it back again—if we could devise some way. Zamara, can you think of no device by which it can be obtained? The poor queen has given us nothing but kindness, and to her we have brought perpetual disappointment—perhaps undreamed of trouble. Try, marmosette. In the old times you were never at loss for invention—help me in this strait. I cannot go away and leave that accursed serpent clinging to her hand.” Tears stood in this hard woman’s eyes, she was passionately in earnest. Zamara started up, and seizing her hand, kissed it with heathenish devotion. “Madame has spoken; Zamara has seen her tears, and will give his soul to the task she appoints him.” “My good Zamara, my kind, kind friend! I know that you will wrest this talisman from her hand, if human ingenuity can do it. If I have trust in mortal being, it is in you, my poor marmosette. But to help me in this you must stay at Versailles, while I go up to Paris. Ah! this task of uprooting the wrongs one has perpetrated is a hard one. Something baffles me ever when I strive to do good, while it was so easy to be kicked. Why is this, I wonder! Ah me! how different it might have proved had I been born among the great, rather than forced upon them.” “Madame, I hear some one at your chamber-door.” “Go, go. It is doubtless that tiresome woman.” The next moment Zamara stood by Dame Tillery, who was knocking loudly at the door of Madame Du Berry’s chamber. “Ah!” he said, “let me congratulate you, Dame; all the house is in commotion—such joy, such unheard-of good fortune. Why, it is like being made a princess. They wanted me to come down into the public room and drink to this new dignity—but I said no. When madame herself appears, I will drink to her health, but not with servants, only in her own august presence. This was what I said, madame.” Zamara pressed a tiny hand upon his heart, and bent low as he finished speaking.