And I was wrong even then in the conclusion I jumped to. I know now that it is possible for a woman, a good and pure woman, to mistake the feelings of her heart, to imagine she loves where she does not, and to tread on the edge of a moral precipice, where a false step means the ruin of a soul. And because such a woman was strong enough to save herself, I was base enough to brand her coquette, vile enough to think of revenge. I could hear nothing except that glad cry of welcome; I saw as in a dream before me the figures of the Queen-Mother and our two friends engaged in earnest converse. What they said was nothing to me. I did not hear a word. Once or twice I fancied they looked at me, but I paid no heed to them, standing a little apart, leaning on the hilt of my sword, my soul once more adrift on that dark sea from which but so short a while since I thought I had come safe to port. So I stood until the tension was broken by Catherine’s measured voice: “Monsieur de Vibrac! Be so good as to call Bentivoglio here. We will see the King at once.” CHAPTER XV THE KING’S PEACE I STARTED at the words; but they brought me to myself, and with a bow I turned and passed into the ante-chamber. Some one was just quitting the room as I entered, for I caught the flash of a gay cloak as the Italian closed the door opposite to me, after his departing visitor, and then turned round with that eternal, treacherous smile of his, saying: “_Per Bacco!_ Your audience has been a long one!” “’Tis likely to be longer still. Her Majesty wishes to see you. We go to the King.” He lifted his eyebrows slightly at my last words, only saying, however, as he stepped to the archway: “Her nightly visit. It will not continue for long.” “Is it really so bad?” He stopped, his hands resting on the folds of the curtain; then, bending forward, he said in a low tone: “I keep relays of horses to two frontiers.” There was no more said, and we stepped into the cabinet. Marcilly had returned, radiant and happy; but, in the quick glance I cast around me on entering I did not see Marie, and from my soul I was glad of this. I could not have endured meeting her. In the tumult then in my heart it would have been impossible to have faced her without betraying myself. There was a whispered word or so between Catherine and her chamberlain, and then she spoke loudly, and with an imperious note in her voice: “To the King--by the private way!” and, the Italian leading, we followed the Queen-Mother through the door by which she had entered the cabinet, and along a passage lighted by a small lamp at its extreme end. Here we came to another door, which Bentivoglio opened with a master-key, and, free of this, found ourselves at the base of a wide stairway that led to the apartments of the King.