‘Hush, Mademoiselle, hush!’ I said, almost roughly. ‘You hurt me. You have made me happy; and yet I wish that you were not here, where, I fear, you have few friends, but back at Cocheforet. You have done more for me than I expected, and a hundred times more than I deserved. But it must end here. I was a ruined man before this happened, before I ever saw you. I am no worse now, but I am still that; and I would not have your name pinned to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God forbid I should say more to you, or let you stay where foul tongues would soon malign you.’ She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then, with a growing smile,-- ‘It is too late,’ she said gently. ‘Too late?’ I exclaimed. ‘How, Mademoiselle?’ ‘Because--do you remember, M. de Berault, what you told me of your love-story under the guide-post by Agen? That it could have no happy ending? For the same reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to the Cardinal. By this time it is common property.’ I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her eyes shone under the lashes that almost hid them. Her figure drooped, and yet a smile trembled on her lips. ‘What did you tell him, Mademoiselle?’ I whispered, my breath coming quickly. ‘That I loved,’ she answered boldly, raising her clear eyes to mine. ‘And therefore that I was not ashamed to beg--even on my knees.’ I fell on mine, and caught her hand before the last word passed her lips. For the moment I forgot King and Cardinal, prison and the future, all; all except that this woman, so pure and so beautiful, so far above me in all things, loved me. For the moment, I say. Then I remembered myself. I stood up, and stood back from her in a sudden revulsion of feeling. ‘You do not know me!’ I cried, ‘You do not know what I have done!’ ‘That is what I do know,’ she answered, looking at me with a wondrous smile. ‘Ah! but you do not!’ I cried. ‘And besides, there is this--this between us.’ And I picked up the Cardinal’s letter. It had fallen on the floor. She turned a shade paler. Then she cried quickly,-- ‘Open it! open it! It is not sealed nor closed.’ I obeyed mechanically, dreading with a horrible dread what I might see. Even when I had it open I looked at the finely scrawled characters with eyes askance. But at last I made it out. And it ran thus:-- ‘THE KING’S PLEASURE IS THAT M. GIL DE BERAULT, HAVING MIXED HIMSELF UP IN AFFAIRS OF STATE, RETIRE FORTHWITH TO THE DEMESNE OF COCHEFORET, AND CONFINE HIMSELF WITHIN ITS LIMITS UNTIL THE KING’S PLEASURE BE FURTHER KNOWN. ‘THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU.’