The moments which the maid Blanchette passed with De Montigni, and afterwards with Chazeul, were full of anxiety to Rose d'Albret. She lay in darkness, wakeful and expectant, listening for every sound to give her some indication of the girl's return to the ante-chamber, from which she had heard her distinctly go forth, without knowing the cause. Imagination was busy with every painful possibility. She feared that their whole scheme of flight might be discovered; she thought that the maid might have conceived a suspicion from some little preparations which she had made during the evening; she asked herself what would be her fate if the execution of their design were prevented. Would they, could they, compel her to unite herself to Chazeul? and she now shrunk from the very idea with tenfold horror. She would not do it, she thought; she would sooner die. She would seek the protection of the cloister--anything, she would do anything, rather than give her hand to one whom she equally disliked and despised. Suddenly, in the midst of these feelings, a sensation of wonder at their vehemence came over her; and she asked herself how it was that her ideas upon the subject had been so suddenly and completely changed. She had till lately looked upon her marriage with Chazeul as a thing arranged, and to which she would submit, not without some repugnance, perhaps, but without that degree of horror and dislike which she now experienced. At first she had been coldly indifferent; and afterwards she had wished to put off the day of the sacrifice as long as possible; but she now felt that a life of penury and daily labour, would be comparative happiness to wedding Nicholas de Chazeul. How had a single day made this strange difference? she inquired, and then she thought of De Montigni; and, though no eye could see her, the colour rose in her cheek, to feel how different were all her sensations towards him, how willingly to him she would yield heart and hand! But the secret of the change was discovered,--she loved, and loved truly, and a new light had shone into her heart.