y closed the door of the
church by which she had entered. He made sure that it could not be opened
on the outside, and then followed his betrothed to kneel within the place
of penitence. Arrived an hour before her, with his old valet, he had
found this open--a certain and understood sign that the Abbe Quillet, his
tutor, awaited him at the accustomed place. His care to prevent any
surprise had made him remain himself to guard the entrance until the
arrival of Marie. Delighted as he was at the punctuality of the good
Abbe, he would still scarcely leave his post to thank him. He was a
second father to him in all but authority; and he acted toward the good
priest without much ceremony.

The old parish church of St. Eustache was dark. Besides the perpetual
lamp, there were only four flambeaux of yellow wax, which, attached above
the fonts against the principal pillars, cast a red glimmer upon the blue
and black marble of the empty church. The light scarcely penetrated the
deep niches of the aisles of the sacred building. In one of the
chapels--the darkest of them--was the confessional, of which we have
before spoken, whose high iron grating and thick double planks left
visible only the small dome and the wooden cross. Here, on either side,
knelt Cinq-Mars and Marie de Mantua. They could scarcely see each other,
but found that the Abbe Quillet, seated between them, was there awaiting
them. They could see through the little grating the shadow of his hood.
Henri d'Effiat approached slowly; he was regulating, as it were, the
remainder of his destiny. It was not before his king that he was about to
appear, but before a more powerful sovereign, before her for whom he had
undertaken his immense work. He was about to test her faith; and he
trembled.

He trembled still more when his young betrothed knelt opposite to him; he
trembled, because at the sight of this angel he could not help feeling
all the happiness he might lose. He dared not speak first, and remained
for an instant contemplating her head in the shade, that young head upon
which rested all his hopes. Despite his love, whenever he looked upon her
he could not refrain from a kind of dread at having undertaken so much
for a girl, whose passion was but a feeble reflection of his own, and who
perhaps would not appreciate all the sacrifices he had made for
her--bending the firm character of his mind to the compliances of a
courtier, condemning it to the intrigues and sufferi