through the room, breaking forth simultaneously
from the King and the spectators, and surely never had been seen a
stranger sight.

The shutters were half closed, and only a feeble light struggled
through the velvet curtains, with their thick silk linings, and the
eyes of the courtiers had to get accustomed to the darkness before
they could distinguish between the surrounding objects. But once
discerned, they stood out as clear as day.

So, looking up, they saw Louis XIV. in the doorway of the private
stair, his face pale and his brows bent; and behind him stood Fouquet.

The Queen Mother, whose hand held that of Philippe, uttered a shriek
at the sight, thinking that she beheld a ghost.

Monsieur staggered for a moment and turned away his head, looking from
the King who was facing him to the King who was by his side.

Madame on the contrary stepped forward, thinking it must be her
brother-in-law reflected in a mirror. And indeed, this seemed the only
rational explanation of the double image.

Both young men, agitated and trembling, clenching their hands, darting
flames of fury from their eyes, dumb, breathless, ready to spring at
each other's throats, resembled each other so exactly in feature,
figure, and even, by pure accident, in dress, that Anne of Austria
herself stood confounded. For as yet the truth had not dawned on her.
There are some torments that we all instinctively reject. It is
easier far to accept the supernatural, the impossible.

That he should encounter such obstacles had never for one moment
occurred to Louis. He imagined he had only to show himself, for the
world to fall at his feet. The Sun-king could have no rival; and where
his rays did not fall, there must be darkness--

As to Fouquet, who could describe his bewilderment at the sight of the
living portrait of his master? Then he thought that Aramis was right,
and that the new-comer was every whit as much a king as his double,
and that after all, perhaps he had made a mistake when he had declined
to share in the _coup d'etat_ so cleverly plotted by the General of
the Jesuits.

And then, it was equally the blood royal of Louis XIII. that Fouquet
had determined to sacrifice to blood in all respects identical; a
noble ambition, to one that was selfish. And it was the mere aspect of
the pretender which showed him all these things.

D'Artagnan, leaning against the wall and facing Fouquet, was debating
in his own mind the key to this wonder