ill tear her image
from my heart, duke, even if my heart breaks in the attempt."

Mary Grafton gazed upon him with an expression of the most indefinable
pity, and Raoul returned her look with a sweet, sorrowful smile, saying,
"Mademoiselle, the diamond which the king has given me was destined
for you,--give me leave to offer it for your acceptance: if I marry in
France, you will send it me back; if I do not marry, keep it." And he
bowed and left her.

"What does he mean?" thought Buckingham, while Raoul pressed Mary's icy
hand with marks of the most reverential respect.

Mary understood the look that Buckingham fixed upon her.

"If it were a wedding-ring, I would not accept it," she said.

"And yet you were willing to ask him to return to you."

"Oh! duke," cried the young girl in heart-broken accents, "a woman such
as I am is never accepted as a consolation by a man like him."

"You do not think he will return, then?"

"Never," said Miss Grafton, in a choking voice.

"And I grieve to tell you, Mary, that he will find yonder his happiness
destroyed, his mistress lost to him. His honor even has not escaped.
What will be left him, then, Mary, equal to your affection? Answer,
Mary, you who know yourself so well."

Miss Grafton placed her white hand on Buckingham's arm, and, while Raoul
was hurrying away with headlong speed, she repeated in dying accents the
line from Romeo and Juliet:

"_I must be gone and live, or stay and die_."

As she finished the last word, Raoul disappeared. Miss Grafton returned
to her own apartments, paler than death. Buckingham availed himself of
the arrival of the courier, who had brought the letter to the king,
to write to Madame and to the Comte de Guiche. The king had not been
mistaken, for at two in the morning the tide was at full flood, and
Raoul had embarked for France.

Chapter XXXIX. Saint-Aignan Follows Malicorne's Advice.

The king most assiduously followed the progress which was made in La
Valliere's portrait; and did so with a care and attention arising as
much from a desire that it should resemble her as from the wish that the
painter should prolong the period of its completion as much as possible.
It was amusing to observe him follow the artist's brush, awaiting the
completion of a particular plan, or the result of a combination of
colors, and suggesting various modifications to the painter, which the
latter consented to adopt with the most respectful docility.