id!"
She was silent; Cinq-Mars replied only with a deep sigh.
"How! you do not speak to me!" she said.
"Are these, then, all your terrors?" asked Cinq-Mars, bitterly.
"Can I have greater? Oh, 'mon ami', in what a tone, with what a voice,
do you address me! Are you angry because I came too late?"
"Too soon, Madame, much too soon, for the things you are to hear--for I
see you are far from prepared for them."
Marie, affected at the gloomy and bitter tone of his voice, began to
weep.
"Alas, what have I done," she said, "that you should call me Madame, and
treat me thus harshly?"
"Be tranquil," replied Cinq-Mars, but with irony in his tone. "'Tis
not, indeed, you who are guilty; but I--I alone; not toward you, but for
you."
"Have you done wrong, then? Have you ordered the death of any one? Oh,
no, I am sure you have not, you are so good!"
"What!" said Cinq-Mars, "are you as nothing in my designs? Did I
misconstrue your thoughts when you looked at me in the Queen's boudoir?
Can I no longer read in your eyes? Was the fire which animated them that
of a love for Richelieu? That admiration which you promised to him who
should dare to say all to the King, where is it? Is it all a falsehood?"
Marie burst into tears.
"You still speak to me with bitterness," she said; "I have not deserved
it. Do you suppose, because I speak not of this fearful conspiracy, that
I have forgotten it? Do you not see me miserable at the thought? Must
you see my tears? Behold them; I shed enough in secret. Henri, believe
that if I have avoided this terrible subject in our last interviews,
it is from the fear of learning too much. Have I any other thought that
that of your dangers? Do I not know that it is for me you incur them?
Alas! if you fight for me, have I not also to sustain attacks no less
cruel? Happier than I, you have only to combat hatred, while I struggle
against friendship. The Cardinal will oppose to you men and weapons;
but the Queen, the gentle Anne of Austria, employs only tender advice,
caresses, sometimes tears."
"Touching and invincible constraint to make you accept a throne," said
Cinq-Mars, bitterly. "I well conceive you must need some efforts to
resist such seductions; but first, Madame, I must release you from your
vows."
"Alas, great Heaven! what is there, then, against us?"
"There is God above us, and against us," replied Henri, in a severe
tone; "the King has deceived me."
There was an agitate
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