. I
might have been able to administer some relief to your body and to your
mind, too; but since your majesty forbids me, I will take my leave.
Adieu, madame, adieu!"

These words were uttered with a harmony of tone and respect of manner
that disarmed the queen of all anger and suspicion, but did not remove
her feeling of curiosity. "You are right," she said; "it ill-becomes
those who are suffering to reject the means of relief Heaven sends them.
Speak, then; and may you, indeed, be able, as you assert, to administer
relief to my body--"

"Let us first speak a little of the mind, if you please," said the
Beguine--"of the mind, which, I am sure, must also suffer."

"My mind?"

"There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very
pulsations cannot be felt. Such cancers, madame, leave the ivory
whiteness of the skin unblemished, and putrefy not the firm, fair flesh,
with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's
chest hears not, though he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease
grinding onward through the muscles, and the blood flows freely on; the
knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely, even temporarily, to
disarm the rage of these mortal scourges,--their home is in the mind,
which they corrupt,--they gnaw the whole heart until it breaks. Such,
madame, are the cancers fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their
scourge?"

Anne slowly raised her arm, dazzling in its perfect whiteness, and pure
in its rounded outlines as it was in the time of her earlier days.

"The evils to which you allude," she said, "are the condition of the
lives of the high in rank upon earth, to whom Heaven has imparted mind.
When those evils become too heavy to be borne, Heaven lightens their
burdens by penitence and confession. Thus, only, we lay down our burden
and the secrets that oppress us. But, forget not that the same gracious
Heaven, in its mercy, apportions to their trials the strength of the
feeble creatures of its hand; and my strength has enabled me to bear my
burden. For the secrets of others, the silence of Heaven is more than
sufficient; for my own secrets, that of my confessor is enough."

"You are as courageous, madame, I see, as ever, against your enemies.
You do not acknowledge your confidence in your friends?"

"Queens have no friends; if you have nothing further to say to me,--if
you feel yourself inspired by Heaven as a prophetess--leave me, I pray,
for I dread the futur