Mary Connynge, trembling, pallid, utterly broken, never found her way back to the right hand of the regent. She half stumbled into a chair near the foot of the table. Her bosom fluttered at the base of the throat. Half blindly she reached out her hand toward a glass of wine which stood near by, foaming and sparkling, its gem-like drops of keen pungency swimming continuously up to the surface. Her hand caught at the slender stem of the glass. Leaning upon her left arm, she half rose as though to put it to her lips. Her head moved, as though she would follow the retreating figure of the man who had thus scornfully used her. All at once, slowly, and then with a sudden crash, she sank down upon her seat and fell forward across the table. The fragile glass snapped in her fingers. The amber wine rushed in swift flood across the linen. In the broadening stain there fell and lay blazing the great gem of France. CHAPTER IX THE NEWS "Lady Kitty! Lady Kitty! Have you heard the news?" Thus, breathless, the Countess of Warrington, Lady Catharine's English neighbor in exile, who burst into the drawing-room early in the morning, not waiting for announcement of her presence. "Nay, not yet, my dear," said Lady Catharine, advancing and embracing her. "What is it, pray? Has the poodle swallowed a bone, or the baby perhaps cut another tooth? And, forsooth, how is the little one?" Lady Emily Warrington, slender, elegant, well clad, and for the most part languorously calm, was in a state of excitement quite without her customary _aplomb_. She sank into a seat, fanning herself with a vigor which threatened ruin to the precious slats of a fan which bore the handiwork of Watteau. "The streets are full of it," said she. "Have you not heard, really?" "I must say, not yet. But what is it?" "Why, the quarrel between the regent and his director-general, Mr. Law." "No, I have not heard of it." Lady Catharine sought refuge behind her own fan. "But tell me" she continued. "But that is not all. 'Twas the reason for the quarrel. Paris is all agog. 'Twas about a woman!" "You mean--there was--a woman?" "Yes, it all happened last night, at the Palais Royal. The woman is dead--died last night. 'Tis said she fell in a fit at the very table--'twas at a little supper given by the regent--and that when they came to her she was quite dead." "But Mr. Law--" "'Twas he that killed her!" "Good God! What mean you?" cried Lady Catharine, her own face blanching behind her protecting fan. The blood swept back upon her heart, leaving her cold as a statue.