sive and unnatural. If the Cardinal's sole aim were to
show attachment and gratitude toward your family, he would not have
carried his favors so far; no, the extreme probability is that he has
designs upon you. From what has been told him, he thinks you adapted to
play some part, as yet impossible for us to divine, but which he himself
has traced out in the deepest recesses of his mind. He wishes to educate
you for this; he wishes to drill you into it. Allow me the expression in
consideration of its accuracy, and think seriously of it when the time
shall come. But I am inclined to believe that, as matters are, you would
do well to follow up this vein in the great mine of State; in this way
high fortunes have begun. You must only take heed not to be blinded and
led at will. Let not favors dazzle you, my poor child, and let not
elevation turn your head. Be not so indignant at the suggestion; the
thing has happened to older men than yourself. Write to me often, as well
as to your mother; see Monsieur de Thou, and together we will try to keep
you in good counsel. Now, my son, be kind enough to close that window
through which the wind comes upon my head, and I will tell you what has
been going on here."

Henri, trusting that the moral part of the discourse was over, and
anticipating nothing in the second part but a narrative more or less
interesting, closed the old casement, festooned with cobwebs, and resumed
his seat without speaking.

"Now that I reflect further," continued the Abbe, "I think it will not
perhaps be unprofitable for you to have passed through this place,
although it be a sad experience you shall have acquired; but it will
supply what I may not have formerly told you of the wickedness of men. I
hope, moreover, that the result will not be fatal, and that the letter we
have written to the King will arrive in time."

"I heard that it had been intercepted," interposed Cinq-Mars.

"Then all is over," said the Abbe Quillet; "the Cure is lost. But listen.
God forbid, my son, that I, your old tutor, should seek to assail my own
work, and attempt to weaken your faith! Preserve ever and everywhere that
simple creed of which your noble family has given you the example, which
our fathers possessed in a still higher degree than we, and of which the
greatest captains of our time are not ashamed. Always, while you wear a
sword, remember that you hold it for the service of God. But at the same
time, when you are among m