She replied in an agony of terror at his last words, "I have no other counsel to offer your Majesty than that of your own conscience. If any other than a man whom you had offended, Sire, had failed to show proper respect to you, or had basely abandoned you when in danger of your life, you would not, I fancy, have come to ask my advice as to the fit punishment to be meted out to the culprit. Therefore some very weighty motive must have constrained your Majesty to adopt a policy of silence which seems to imply forgiveness. Now I confess that I can see no reason why you should not continue to act as you have begun; for it seems to me that if Monsieur d'Exmès had been capable of meditating a crime against you, he could hardly have expected two fairer opportunities than those which were offered him in a lonely gallery in the Louvre, and in the forest of Fontainebleau on the edge of a precipice--" "You need say no more, Diane," said Henri; "and I will not ask you another question. You have banished a serious anxiety from my heart, and I thank you sincerely for it, my dear child. Let us say no more about this. Now I shall be able to devote my thoughts freely to our approaching marriage festivities. I desire that they shall be magnificent, and that you shall be as magnificent as they. Diane, do you hear?" "I beg your Majesty to excuse me," said Diane; "but I was just about to ask leave to absent myself from these festivities. I should much prefer, if I must confess it, to remain here by myself." "What!" exclaimed the king; "but do you know, Diane, that this will be truly a royal display? There will be games and tournaments, all on the most splendid scale, and I myself shall be one of those who hold the lists against all comers. What pressing affairs can you have to keep you away from such superb spectacles, my darling daughter?" "Sire," replied Diane, in a tone of the utmost gravity, "I have to pray." A few minutes later the king quitted Madame de Castro, with his heart relieved of part of its anguish. But alas! he left poor Diane with so much the more anguish at her heart. CHAPTER XI OMENS The king, thenceforth almost free from the anxiety which had weighed upon him, urged on most energetically the preparations for the magnificent fêtes which he proposed to provide for his fair city of Paris, on the occasion of the happy marriages of his daughter Élisabeth with Philip II., and his sister Marguerite with the Duke of Savoy. Very happy marriages, in sooth, and which surely deserved to be celebrated with such rejoicing and splendor. The author of Don Carlos has told us so well that we need not repeat it, what was the result of the first. We shall see to what the preliminaries of the other led. The contract of marriage between Philibert Emmanuel and Marguerite de France was to be signed on the 28th of June.