ween two tombs."

"God grant, my sweet, that it may have a happy termination!" said the
Queen.

"I hope so, Madame, since you pray for me," continued Marie. "Besides,
everything now smiles upon me; but at that time I was very miserable. The
news arrived one day at the chateau that the Cardinal had called Monsieur
de Cinq-Mars to the army. It seemed to me that I was again deprived of
one of my relatives; and yet we were strangers. But Monsieur de
Bassompierre spoke without ceasing of battles and death. I retired every
evening in grief, and I wept during the night. I thought at first that my
tears flowed for the past, but I soon perceived that it was for the
future; and I felt that they could not be the same tears, since I wished
to conceal them. Some time passed in the expectation of his departure. I
saw him every day; and I pitied him for having to depart, because he
repeated to me every instant that he would have wished to live eternally
as he then did, in his own country and with us. He was thus without
ambition until the day of his departure, because he knew not whether he
was--whether he was--I dare not say it to your Majesty--"

Marie blushed, cast down her humid eyes, and smiled.

"Well!" said the Queen, "whether he was beloved,--is it not so?"

"And in the evening, Madame, he left, ambitious."

"That is evident, certainly. He left," said Anne of Austria, somewhat
relieved; "but he has been back two years, and you have seen him?"

"Seldom, Madame," said the young Duchess, proudly; "and always in the
presence of the priest, before whom I have promised to be the wife of no
other than Cinq-Mars."

"Is it really, then, a marriage? Have you dared to do it? I shall
inquire. But, Heaven, what faults! how many faults in the few words I
have heard! Let me reflect upon them."

And, speaking aloud to herself, the Queen continued, her eyes and head
bent in the attitude of reflection:

"Reproaches are useless and cruel if the evil is done. The past is no
longer ours; let us think of the future. Cinq-Mars is brave, able, and
even profound in his ideas. I have observed that he has done much in two
years, and I now see that it was for Marie. He comports himself well; he
is worthy of her in my eyes, but not so in the eyes of Europe. He must
rise yet higher. The Princesse de Mantua can not, may not, marry less
than a prince. He must become one. By myself I can do nothing; I am not
the Queen, I am the neglected wife of th