"Everything, what?" "Everything I said beneath the royal oak." "I did not lose a syllable." "And when your majesty heard me, you were able to think I had abused your credulity." "Credulity; yes, indeed you have selected the very word." "And your majesty did not suppose that a poor girl like myself might possibly be compelled to submit to the will of others." "Forgive me," returned the king; "but I shall never be able to understand that she, who of her own free will could express herself so unreservedly beneath the royal oak, would allow herself to be influenced to such an extent by the direction of others." "But the threat held out against me, sire." "Threat! who threatened you--who dared to threaten you?" "They who have the right to do so, sire." "I do not recognize any one as possessing the right to threaten in my kingdom." "Forgive me, sire, but near your majesty, even, there are persons sufficiently high in position to have, or to believe that they possess, the right of injuring a young girl, without fortune, and possessing only her reputation." "In what way injure her?" "In depriving her of her reputation, by disgracefully expelling her from the court." "Oh! Mademoiselle de la Valliere," said the king, bitterly, "I prefer those persons who exculpate themselves without incriminating others." "Sire!" "Yes; and I confess that I greatly regret to perceive that an easy justification, as your own might be, should have been complicated in my presence by a tissue of reproaches and imputations against others." "And which you do not believe?" exclaimed La Valliere. The king remained silent. "Nay, but tell me!" repeated La Valliere, vehemently. "I regret to confess it," replied the king, bowing coldly. The young girl uttered a deep groan, striking her hands together in despair. "You do not believe me, then," she said to the king, who still remained silent, while poor La Valliere's features became visibly changed at his continued silence. "Therefore, you believe," she said, "that I settled this ridiculous, this infamous plot, of trifling, in so shameless a manner, with your majesty." "Nay," said the king, "it is neither ridiculous nor infamous, it is not even a plot; it is merely a jest, more or less amusing, and nothing more." "Oh!" murmured the young girl, "the king does not, and will not, believe me, then?" "No, indeed, I will not believe you," said the king. "Besides, in point of fact, what can be more natural? The king, you argue, follows me, listens to me, watches me; the king wishes perhaps to amuse himself at my expense, I will amuse myself at his, and as the king is very tender-hearted, I will take his heart by storm." La Valliere hid her face in her hands, as she stifled her sobs. The king continued most pitilessly, he revenged himself upon the poor victim before him for all that he had himself suffered.