"
"That was--"
"That her husband was the foulest traitor out of hell. But that
he was a fool with no wit of his own to make him accountable for
what he did, and that out of folly he had gone astray. Upon those
grounds she besought me to forgive him and let him go. When I
told her that he must stand his trial, and that I could offer her
but little hope of his acquittal, she told me things about myself,
which in my conceit, and thanks to you flatterers who have
surrounded me, I had never dreamed.
"She told me I was ugly, sour-faced, and malformed; that I was
priest-ridden and a fool; unlike my brother, who, she assured me,
is a mirror of chivalry and manly perfections. She promised me
that Heaven should never receive my soul, though I told my beads
from now till Doomsday, and she prophesied for me a welcome among
the damned when my time comes. What more she might have foretold
I cannot say. She wearied me at last, for all her novelty, and I
dismissed her - that is to say," he amended, "I ordered four
musketeers to carry her out. God pity you, Marcel, when you become
her daughter's husband!"
But I had no heart to enter into his jocularity. This woman
with her ungovernable passion and her rash tongue had destroyed
everything.
"I see no likelihood of being her daughter's husband," I answered
mournfully.
The King looked up, and laughed. "Down on your knees, then," said
he, "and render thanks to Heaven."
But I shook my head very soberly.
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