e, Maurice, as you hope for forgiveness yourself! Maurice!
Maurice!" She strove to get towards him, to clutch at his wrist, at his
sleeve, but he stood with his hand on his sword, gazing at her with a
face which was all wreathed and contorted with merriment. At the sight
of that dreadful mocking face the prayers froze upon her lips. As well
pray for mercy to the dropping stone or to the rushing stream. She
turned away, and threw back the mantle which had shrouded her features.

"Ah, sire!" she cried. "Sire! If you could see me now!"

And at the cry and at the sight of that fair pale face, De Catinat,
looking down from the window, was stricken as though by a dagger; for
there, standing beside the headsman's block, was she who had been the
most powerful, as well as the wittiest and the fairest, of the women of
France--none other than Francoise de Montespan, so lately the favourite
of the king.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE KING'S CABINET.

On the night upon which such strange chances had befallen his
messengers, the king sat alone in his cabinet. Over his head a perfumed
lamp, held up by four little flying Cupids of crystal, who dangled by
golden chains from the painted ceiling, cast a brilliant light upon the
chamber, which was flashed back twenty-fold by the mirrors upon the
wall. The ebony and silver furniture, the dainty carpet of La
Savonniere, the silks of Tours, the tapestries of the Gobelins, the
gold-work and the delicate chinaware of Sevres--the best of all that
France could produce was centred between these four walls. Nothing had
ever passed through that door which was not a masterpiece of its kind.
And amid all this brilliance the master of it sat, his chin resting upon
his hands, his elbows upon the table, with eyes which stared vacantly at
the wall, a moody and a solemn man.

But though his dark eyes were fixed upon the wall, they saw nothing of
it. They looked rather down the long vista of his own life, away to
those early years when what we dream and what we do shade so mistily
into one another. Was it a dream or was it a fact, those two men who
used to stoop over his baby crib, the one with the dark coat and the
star upon his breast, whom he had been taught to call father, and the
other one with the long red gown and the little twinkling eyes?
Even now, after more than forty years, that wicked, astute, powerful
face flashed up, and he saw once more old Richelieu, the great
unanointed king