he said. "I do not understand you; your reasoning
unreasons you. You hunt a shadow."

"Nay," continued Cinq-Mars; "far from destroying my strength, this
inward fire has developed it. I have calculated everything. Slow steps
have led me to the end which I am about to attain. Marie drew me by the
hand; could I retreat? I would not have done it though a world faced me.
Hitherto, all has gone well; but an invisible barrier arrests me. This
barrier must be broken; it is Richelieu. But now in your presence I
undertook to do this; but perhaps I was too hasty. I now think I was so.
Let him rejoice; he expected me. Doubtless he foresaw that it would
be the youngest whose patience would first fail. If he played on this
calculation, he played well. Yet but for the love that has urged me on,
I should have been stronger than he, and by just means."

Then a sudden change came over the face of Cinq-Mars. He turned pale and
red twice; and the veins of his forehead rose like blue lines drawn by
an invisible hand.

"Yes," he added, rising, and clasping together his hands with a force
which indicated the violent despair concentred in his heart, "all the
torments with which love can tear its victims I have felt in my breast.
This timid girl, for whom I would shake empires, for whom I have
suffered all, even the favor of a prince, who perhaps has not felt all I
have done for her, can not yet be mine. She is mine before God, yet I am
estranged from her; nay, I must hear daily discussed before me which of
the thrones of Europe will best suit her, in conversations wherein I may
not even raise my voice to give an opinion, and in which they scorn as
mate for her princes of the blood royal, who yet have precedence far
before me. I must conceal myself like a culprit to hear through a
grating the voice of her who is my wife; in public I must bow before
her--her husband, yet her servant! 'Tis too much; I can not live thus. I
must take the last step, whether it elevate me or hurl me down."

"And for your personal happiness you would overthrow a State?"

"The happiness of the State is one with mine. I secure that undoubtedly
in destroying the tyrant of the King. The horror with which this man
inspires me has passed into my very blood. When I was first on my way to
him, I encountered in my journey his greatest crime. He is the genius of
evil for the unhappy King! I will exorcise him. I might have become the
genius of good for Louis XIII. It was on