Louis de Gonzague rose to his feet and surveyed his assembled guests with a grave countenance that seemed to suggest boldness without effrontery and a grief nobly borne. All present admired his beauty, his dignity, the proud humility of his carriage towards the great lady who was in name his wife. Many sympathized with him in what they knew to be his strange position, and felt that the princess was indeed to blame in refusing friendship and sympathy to such a man. Gonzague bowed respectfully to the king, and his eyes travelled over the whole range of his audience as he spoke. "Sire," he said, "I have to speak to-day of the sorrow that has haunted me, as it has haunted your majesty, for seventeen years. Louis de Lorraine, Duke de Nevers, was my cousin by blood, my brother by affection. His memory lives here, eternal as is the grief of his widow, who has not disdained to wear my name after wearing his." He paused for a moment, and in that pause the princess spoke in a voice that was shaken with emotion, in spite of her determination to be firm: "Do not speak of that. I have passed those seventeen years in solitude and in tears." Gonzague paid to her and her sorrow the homage of a bow; then he resumed: "When madame the princess did me the honor to accept my name, she made public her secret but legitimate marriage with the late Duke de Nevers and the birth of a daughter of that union. This child disappeared on the night of Nevers's death. The registration of its birth is torn out of the chapel register and lost. For seventeen years the princess has patiently sought for her lost child, and has sought in vain." The princess sighed: "Alas!" Gonzague paused for a moment as if to allow the princess to say more, and then, seeing she kept silent, he continued: "Calumniators have hinted that it was my wish that the child should not be found. Have they not, madame?" "Such things have been said," the princess replied, gravely. Again Gonzague spoke: "There were even those who hinted that my hand might strike at a child's life. Is not that so?" Again the princess repeated her former phrase: "Such things have been said." Now Gonzague questioned her directly: "And you believed the accusation?" The princess inclined her head: "I believed it." At this reply a murmur not to be repressed ran through the assembly. Those that sympathized with Gonzague before now sympathized more deeply on hearing such an answer come so coldly from his wife's lips. Gonzague allowed himself the luxury of a little, patient sigh, the privileged protest of the good and just under an intolerable suspicion. "I am not surprised. The princess does not know me. For seventeen years the princess and I have been strangers. Now, for the first time, I can show myself to my wife as I am." He addressed himself directly to the princess: "Through all these seventeen years I, too, have been seeking what you sought; but, more fortunate than you, I have succeeded where you have failed."