Still the Duke de Biron did not see, for his mind was so deeply engrossed with the schemes of his mad ambition, and the selfishness of his pride, that nothing else rested in his thoughts for a moment. Messengers were coming and going between him and the Duke of Savoy, a known enemy to France, and whenever he spoke with St. Maurice, it was in terms of anger towards the good King Henry IV., and of praise and pleasure towards the cold-hearted monarch of Spain. Often, too, he would apparently strive to sound the disposition of his young follower, and would throw him into company with men of more art and cunning than himself, who would speak of the destruction of the Bourbon line as necessary for the good of France and the tranquillity of Europe, and insinuate that a time might be at hand when such a sacrifice would be completed. St. Maurice frowned, and was silent when the design was covered, as often happened, with much art, and boldly spoke his mind against traitors when the treason was apparent. At length one day he was called to the presence of the Duke, whom he found alone. "Come hither, St. Maurice," said his friend; "I have brought you up, young Count, from your infancy to your manhood--I have been your friend in fair days and foul--I taught you the duty of a soldier, and the duty of an officer--I have raised you higher than any other man in France could do, or would do--and now tell me--whether do you love best Henry of Bearn or me?" "Your words, my lord," replied St. Maurice, "taught me in early years to love the King, and your actions taught me to love yourself; but the honour of a French noble teaches me to love my duty, and that joins ever with my love towards my King." "Ha!" exclaimed Biron, his dark brow burning, "must you teach me what is duty?--Begone, ungrateful boy!--leave me--thus, like the man in the fable, we nourish serpents in our bosom, that will one day sting us--begone, I say!"--St. Maurice turned to quit the cabinet, with feelings of sorrow and indignation in his heart: but grief to see his benefactor thus standing on the brink of dishonour and destruction, overcame all personal feeling, and he paused, exclaiming, "Oh! my lord, my lord! beware how you bring certain ruin on your own head ----." But remonstrance only called up wrath. Biron lost all command over himself. He stamped with his heavy boot till the chamber rang; he bade St. Maurice quit his presence and his dwelling; he stripped him, with a word, of all the posts and employments which he had conferred upon him, and bade him, ere two days were over, leave the castle of Bourg, and go forth from his family; a beggar as he had entered it. Nor alone, in his rash passion, did he content himself with venting his wrath upon his young follower, but he dropped words against the monarch and the state, which left his treasonable practices beyond a doubt.