Mary Grafton gazed upon him with an expression of the most indefinable pity, and Raoul returned her look with a sad, sorrowful smile, saying, "Mademoiselle, the diamond which the king has given me was destined for you--give me leave to offer it for your acceptance; if I marry in France, you will send it me back; if I do not marry, keep it." And he bowed and left her. "What does he mean?" thought Buckingham, while Raoul pressed Mary's icy hand with marks of the most reverential respect. Mary understood the look that Buckingham fixed upon her. "If it were a wedding-ring, I would not accept it," she said. "And yet you were willing to ask him to return to you." "Oh! duke," cried the young girl in heartbroken accents, "a woman such as I am is never accepted as a consolation by a man like him." "You do not think he will return, then?" "Never," said Miss Grafton, in a choking voice. "And I grieve to tell you, Mary, that he will find yonder his happiness destroyed, his mistress lost to him. His honor even has not escaped. What will be left him, then, Mary, equal to your affection? Do you answer, Mary, you who know yourself so well." Miss Grafton placed her white hand on Buckingham's arm, and, while Raoul was hurrying away with headlong speed, she sang in dying accents the line from "Romeo and Juliet": "I must begone and live, or stay and die." As she finished the last word, Raoul had disappeared. Miss Grafton returned to her own apartment, paler than death itself. Buckingham availed himself of the arrival of the courier, who had brought the letter to the king, to write to Madame and to the Comte de Guiche. The king had not been mistaken, for at two in the morning the tide was at full flood, and Raoul had embarked for France. CHAPTER XLVI. SAINT-AIGNAN FOLLOWS MALICORNE'S ADVICE. The king most assiduously followed the progress which was made in La Valliere's portrait; and did so with a care and attention arising as much from a desire that it should resemble her as from the wish that the painter should prolong the period of its completion as much as possible. It was amusing to observe him following the artist's brush, awaiting the completion of a particular plan, or the result of a combination of colors, and suggesting various modifications to the painter, which the latter consented to adopt with the most respectful docility of disposition. And again, when the artist, following Malicorne's advice, was a little late in arriving, and when Saint-Aignan had been obliged to be absent for some time, it was interesting to observe, though no one witnessed them, those moments of silence full of deep expression, which united in one sigh two souls most disposed to understand each other, and who by no means objected to the quiet and meditation they enjoyed together.