they were tears of rage and mortification.

It was when husband and wife were left alone on the broad balcony of the
Mansion of the Palmer, by the southern river-front of Argenton--the
Creuse, sweetest and daintiest of streams in a land all given over to
such, slipping dreamily by--that Margot told the Bearnais why she had
come.

"Do not thank me," she said; "you have that Huguenot sister of yours to
thank--a good, brave girl, too good to be married as I was (and as you
were, my poor Henry!) for politics' sake, and a few more acres of land.
Also, you owe it to the good counsels of yonder Scottish maid, called
Claire Agnew, who----"

Henry rose from the low chair on which he had been carelessly resting
his thigh.

"Why, I remember the girl"--he threw up his hands in humorous despair.
"Oh, you women, a man never knows when he will have you! I thought that
you, Margot, my wife, would have been at Usson flying your hawks, and
gathering snails for the Friday's _pot-au-feu_; that Catherine, my
admirable sister, had been safe at her prayers in the Castle of Pau,
where I left her in good charge and keeping; and of my carefulness I
had even provided that this Scots maiden, the daughter of my good friend
Francis Agnew, should abide in douce tranquillity with her Professor of
the Sorbonne, within ear-shot, not to say pistol-shot of a certain
Anthony Arpajon, a sure henchman of mine, in the town of Blois. But here
be all three of you gadding at my heels, Margaret from Auvergne,
Catherine from Pau, and even the Scots maid from Blois, all blown inward
like so many seagulls on the front of a westerly storm!"

"Harry," cried Margot the Queen, "your beard is frosting, and there are
white hairs on my coif at thirty-eight. Yes, there are; you need not
look, for, of course, I have the wit to hide them. We have not agreed
well, you and I. But I like you, great lumping swash-buckler of Bearn.
Even as the husband I was not allowed to choose, I like you. If you had
been any one else, I might even have loved you!"

"Thanks--it is indeed quite possible!" said the King quietly.

"But since they wrote it in a catechism, learned it me by rote, made me
swallow love and obedience willy-nilly before half-a-dozen cardinals and
archbishops glorious, why then, of course, it was 'nilly' and not
'willy.' So things have gone crosswise with us. But there's my hand
on't, Henry. In all save love, I will serve you true. Not even your
beloved Rosny and