rmured Anne of Austria; "how sad the existence he led,
poor child, to finish it in so cruel a manner."

"Is he dead?" cried the duchesse suddenly, with a curiosity whose
genuine accents the queen instinctively detected.

"He died of consumption, died forgotten, died withered and blighted like
the flowers a lover has given to his mistress, which she leaves to die
secreted in a drawer where she had hid them from the gaze of others."

"Died!" repeated the duchesse with an air of discouragement, which would
have afforded the queen the most unfeigned delight, had it not
been tempered in some measure with a mixture of doubt--"Died--at
Noisy-le-Sec?"

"Yes, in the arms of his tutor, a poor, honest man, who did not long
survive him."

"That can easily be understood; it is so difficult to bear up under the
weight of such a loss and such a secret," said Madame de Chevreuse,--the
irony of which reflection the queen pretended not to perceive. Madame
de Chevreuse continued: "Well, madame, I inquired some years ago at
Noisy-le-Sec about this unhappy child. I was told that it was not
believed he was dead, and that was my reason for not having at first
condoled with your majesty; for, most certainly, if I could have thought
it were true, never should I have made the slightest allusion to so
deplorable an event, and thus have re-awakened your majesty's most
natural distress."

"You say that it is not believed the child died at Noisy?"

"No, madame."

"What did they say about him, then?"

"They said--but, no doubt, they were mistaken--"

"Nay, speak, speak!"

"They said, that one evening, about the year 1645, a lady, beautiful and
majestic in her bearing, which was observed notwithstanding the mask and
the mantle that concealed her figure--a lady of rank, of very high rank,
no doubt--came in a carriage to the place where the road branches off;
the very same spot, you know, where I awaited news of the young prince
when your majesty was graciously pleased to send me there."

"Well, well?"

"That the boy's tutor, or guardian, took the child to this lady."

"Well, what next?"

"That both the child and his tutor left that part of the country the
very next day."

"There, you see there is some truth in what you relate, since, in point
of fact, the poor child died from a sudden attack of illness, which
makes the lives of all children, as doctors say, suspended as it were by
a thread."

"What your majesty says is quite true