Several hours then passed anxiously, and although he knew that he could not receive an answer till two or three o'clock, and might perhaps not receive one at all that day, he could not help thinking the time long, and, marking the striking of the palace clock, as if it must have gone wrong for his express torment. The shortest possible space of time, however, in which it was possible to go and come between Versailles and Paris had scarcely expired after the departure of Riquet, when the valet again appeared. He brought with him a scrap of paper, which proved to be the back of the Count's own note to Clémence, unsealed, and with no address upon it; but written in a hasty hand within was found-- "I cannot--I dare not, see you at present, nor can I now write as I should desire to do. If what you wish to say is of immediate importance, write as before, and it is sure to reach me." There was no signature, but the hand was that of Clémence de Marly; and the heart of Albert of Morseiul felt as if it would have broken. It seemed as if the last tie between him and happiness was severed. It seemed as if that hope, which would have afforded him strength, and support, and energy, to combat every difficulty and overleap every obstacle, was taken away from him; and for five or ten minutes he paced up and down the saloon in agony of mind unutterable. "She is yielding already," he said at length, "she is yielding already. The King's commands are hardly announced to her, ere she feels that she must give way. It is strange--it is most strange! I could have staked my life that with her it would have been otherwise!--and yet the influence which this Chevalier d'Evran seems always to have possessed over her is equally strange. If, as she has so solemnly told me, she is not really bound to him by any tie of affection, may she not be bound by some promise rashly given in former years? We have heard of such things. However, no promises to me shall stand in the way; she shall act freely, and at her own will, as far as I am concerned;" and, sitting down, he wrote a few brief lines to Clémence, in which, though he did not pour out the bitterness of his heart, he showed how bitterly he was grieved. "The tidings I had to tell you," he said, "were simply these, which I heard last night. The King destines your hand for another, and has already announced that such is the case. The few words that you have written show me that you are already aware of this fact, and that perhaps struggling between promises to me and an inclination to obey the royal authority, you are pained, and uncertain how to act. Such, at least, is the belief to which I am led by the few cold painful words which I have received. If that belief is right, it may make you more easy to know that, in such a case, Albert of Morseiul will never exact the fulfilment of a promise that Clémence de Marly is inclined to break."