"There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very pulsation is invisible. Such cancers, madame, leave the ivory whiteness of the skin untouched, and marble not the firm, fair flesh, with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's chest hears not, though he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease grinding its onward progress through the muscles, as the blood flows freely on; the knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely even, temporarily, to disarm the rage of these mortal scourges; their home is in the mind, which they corrupt; they fill the whole heart until it breaks. Such, madame, are the cancers fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their scourge?" Anne slowly raised her arm, dazzling in its perfect whiteness, and pure in its rounded outlines, as it was in the time of her earlier days. "The evils to which you allude," she said, "are the condition of the lives of the high in rank upon earth, to whom Heaven has imparted mind. When those evils become too heavy to be borne, Heaven lightens their burden by penitence and confession. There we lay down our burden, and the secrets which oppress us. But, forget not, that the same gracious Heaven, in its mercy, apportions to their trials the strength of the feeble creatures of its hand; and my strength has enabled me to bear my burden. For the secrets of others, the silence of Heaven is more than sufficient; for my own secrets, that of my confessor is just enough." "You are as courageous, madame, I see, as ever, against your enemies. You do not acknowledge your confidence in your friends." "Queens have no friends; if you have nothing further to say to me--if you feel yourself inspired by Heaven as a prophetess--leave me, I pray, for I dread the future." "I should have supposed," said the Beguine, resolutely, "that you would rather have dreaded the past." Hardly had these words escaped her lips, than the queen rose up proudly. "Speak," she cried, in a short, imperious tone of voice, "explain yourself briefly, quickly, entirely; or, if not--" "Nay, do not threaten me, your majesty," said the Beguine, gently; "I came to you full of compassion and respect. I came here on the part of a friend." "Prove that to me! Comfort instead of irritating me." "Easily enough: and your majesty will see who is friendly to you. What misfortune has happened to your majesty during these three and twenty years past--" "Serious misfortunes, indeed; have I not lost the king?" "I speak not of misfortunes of that kind. I wish to ask you, if since the birth of the king, any indiscretion on a friend's part has caused your majesty the slightest serious anxiety or distress?" "I do not understand you," replied the queen, setting her teeth hard together in order to conceal her emotion. "I will make myself understood, then. Your majesty remembers that the king was born on the 5th of September, 1633, at a quarter-past eleven o'clock." "Yes," stammered out the queen.