r brief
intercourse in the previous year; how she had played into her brother's
hands; and when she thought to triumph over the man who had scorned her,
found her soul all blank desolation, and light gone out from the earth!
Reckless and weary, she had let herself be united to M. de Selinville,
and in her bridal honours and amusements had tried to crowd out the
sense of dreariness and lose herself in excitement. Then came the
illness and death of her husband, and almost at the same time the
knowledge of Berenger's existence. She sought excitement again that
feverish form of devotion then in vogue at Paris, and which resulted in
the League. She had hitherto stunned herself as it were with penances,
processions, and sermons, for which the host of religious orders then
at Paris had given ample scope; and she was constantly devising new
extravagances. Even at this moment she wore sackcloth beneath her
brocade, and her rosary was of death's heads. She was living on the
outward husk of the Roman Church not penetrating into its living power,
and the phase of religion which fostered Henry III. and the League
offered her no more.

All, all had melted away beneath the sad but steadfast glance of those
two eyes, the only feature still unchanged in the marred, wrecked
countenance. That honest, quiet refusal, that look which came from a
higher atmosphere, had filled her heart with passionate beatings and
aspirations once more, and more consciously than ever. Womanly feeling
for suffering, and a deep longing to compensate to him, and earn his
love, nay wrest it from him by the benefits she would heap upon him,
were all at work; but the primary sense was the longing to rest on the
only perfect truth she had ever known in man, and thus with passionate
ardour she poured forth her entreaties to St. Eustache, a married saint,
who had known love, and could feel for her, and could surely not object
to the affection to which she completely gave way for one whose hand was
now as free as her own.

But St. Eustache was not Diane's only hope. That evening she sent
Veronique to Rene of Milan, the court-perfumer, but also called by the
malicious, _l'empoisonneur de le Reine_, to obtain from him the most
infallible charm and love potion in his whole repertory.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE CHEVALIER'S EXPIATION

Next, Sirs, did he marry?
And whom, Sirs, did he marry? One like himself, Though doubtless graced
with many virtues,