Miss Mary Grafton hurriedly said, "No, no; I am not going there." "Why not?" "Let us go back, Stewart." "Nay, on the contrary, let us go on and have an explanation." "About what?" "About how it happens that the Vicomte de Bragelonne always accompanies you in all your walks, as you invariably accompany him in his." "And you conclude either that he loves me or that I love him?" "Why not?--he is a most agreeable and charming companion--No one hears me, I hope," said Lucy Stewart, as she turned round with a smile, which indicated, moreover, that her uneasiness on the subject was not extreme. "No, no," said Mary, "the king is engaged in his summer-house with the Duke of Buckingham." "Oh! apropos of the duke; Mary, it seems he has shown you great attention since his return from France; how is your own heart in that direction?" Mary Grafton shrugged her shoulders with seeming indifference. "Well, well, I will ask Bragelonne about that," said Stewart, laughing; "let us go and find him at once." "What for?" "I wish to speak to him." "Not yet; one word before you do; come, Stewart, you who know so many of the king's secrets, tell me why M. de Bragelonne is in England?" "Because he was sent as an envoy from one sovereign to another." "That may be; but, seriously, although politics do not much concern us, we know enough to be satisfied that M. de Bragelonne has no mission of any serious import here." "Well, then, listen," said Stewart, with assumed gravity, "for your sake I am going to betray a state secret. Shall I tell you the nature of the letter which King Louis XIV. gave M. de Bragelonne for King Charles II.? I will; these are the very words, 'My brother, the bearer of this is a gentleman attached to my court, and the son of one whom you regard most warmly. Treat him kindly, I beg, and try and make him like England.'" "Did it say that?" "Word for word--or something very like it. I will not answer for the form; but the substance I am sure of." "Well, and what conclusion do you, or rather what conclusion does the king, draw from that?" "That the king of France has his own reasons for removing M. de Bragelonne, and for getting him married--somewhere else than in France." "So that, then, in consequence of this letter--" "King Charles received M. de Bragelonne, as you are aware, in the most distinguished and friendly manner; the handsomest apartments in Whitehall were allotted to him; and as you are the most valuable and precious person in his court, inasmuch as you have rejected his heart--nay, do not blush--he wished you to take a fancy to this Frenchman, and he was desirous to confer upon him so costly a prize. And this is the reason why you, the heiress of three hundred thousand pounds, a future duchess, and one so beautiful and so good, have been thrown in Bragelonne's way, in all the promenades and parties of pleasure to which he was invited. In fact, it was a plot--a kind of conspiracy."