, grumbling. "I have my feet in the
snow, and a gutter runs down on my head, and there's death at my heart;
and you sing to me of violets, of the sun, and of grass, and of love. Be
silent!"

And, retiring farther in the recess of the church, he leaned his gray
head upon his hands, pensive and motionless. Laure dared not again speak
to him.

While her waiting-woman had gone to find Grandchamp, the young and
trembling Marie with a timid hand had pushed open the folding-door of
the church.

She there found Cinq-Mars standing, disguised, and anxiously awaiting
her. As soon as she recognized him, she advanced with rapid steps into
the church, holding her velvet mask over her face, and hastened to take
refuge in a confessional, while Henri carefully closed the door of
the church by which she had entered. He made sure that it could not be
opened on the outside, and then followed his betrothed to kneel within
the place of penitence. Arrived an hour before her, with his old valet,
he had found this open--a certain and understood sign that the Abbe
Quillet, his tutor, awaited him at the accustomed place. His care to
prevent any surprise had made him remain himself to guard the entrance
until the arrival of Marie. Delighted as he was at the punctuality of
the good Abbe, he would still scarcely leave his post to thank him. He
was a second father to him in all but authority; and he acted toward the
good priest without much ceremony.

The old parish church of St. Eustache was dark. Besides the perpetual
lamp, there were only four flambeaux of yellow wax, which, attached
above the fonts against the principal pillars, cast a red glimmer
upon the blue and black marble of the empty church. The light scarcely
penetrated the deep niches of the aisles of the sacred building. In one
of the chapels--the darkest of them--was the confessional, of which we
have before spoken, whose high iron grating and thick double planks left
visible only the small dome and the wooden cross. Here, on either side,
knelt Cinq-Mars and Marie de Mantua. They could scarcely see each other,
but found that the Abbe Quillet, seated between them, was there awaiting
them. They could see through the little grating the shadow of his hood.
Henri d'Effiat approached slowly; he was regulating, as it were, the
remainder of his destiny. It was not before his king that he was about
to appear, but before a more powerful sovereign, before her for whom he
had undertaken his i