sehold, which is that of
the first princess of the blood, to set an evil example to the court;
you would be the cause of such an example. I beg you to understand,
therefore, in the absence of any witness of your shame--for I do not
wish to humiliate you--that you are from this moment at perfect liberty
to leave, and that you can return to your mother at Blois."

La Valliere could not sink lower, nor could she suffer more than she had
already suffered. Her countenance did not even change, but she remained
kneeling with her hands clasped, like the figure of the Magdalen.

"Did you hear me?" said Madame.

A shiver, which passed through her whole frame, was La Valliere's only
reply. And as the victim gave no other signs of life, Madame left the
room. And then, her very respiration suspended, and her blood almost
congealed, as it were, in her veins, La Valliere by degrees felt that
the pulsation of her wrists, her neck, and temples, began to throb more
and more painfully. These pulsations, as they gradually increased, soon
changed into a species of brain fever, and in her temporary delirium
she saw the figures of her friends contending with her enemies, floating
before her vision. She heard, too, mingled together in her deafened
ears, words of menace and words of fond affection; she seemed raised out
of her existence as though it were upon the wings of a mighty tempest,
and in the dim horizon of the path along which her delirium hurried
her, she saw the stone which covered her tomb upraised, and the grim,
appalling texture of eternal night revealed to her distracted gaze. But
the horror of the dream which possessed her senses faded away, and she
was again restored to the habitual resignation of her character. A ray
of hope penetrated her heart, as a ray of sunlight streams into the
dungeon of some unhappy captive. Her mind reverted to the journey from
Fontainebleau, she saw the king riding beside her carriage, telling
her that he loved her, asking for her love in return, requiring her to
swear, and himself to swear too, that never should an evening pass by,
if ever a misunderstanding were to arise between them, without a visit,
a letter, a sign of some kind, being sent, to replace the troubled
anxiety of the evening with the calm repose of the night. It was the
king who had suggested that, who had imposed a promise on her, and who
had sworn to it himself. It was impossible, therefore, she reasoned,
that the king should fai