n replied; "you are quite right. Marie, it is always the
first word which is the most difficult to say; and that difficulty often
destroys us. But it must be so; and without this rule one would be often
wanting in dignity. Ah, how difficult it is to reign! To-day I would
descend into your heart, but I come too late to do you good."

Marie de Mantua hung her head without making any reply.

"Must I encourage you to speak?" said the Queen. "Must I remind you that
I have almost adopted you for my eldest daughter? that after seeking
to unite you with the King's brother, I prepared for you the throne of
Poland? Must I do more, Marie? Yes, I must, I will. If afterward you do
not open your whole heart to me, I have misjudged you. Open this golden
casket; here is the key. Open it fearlessly; do not tremble as I do."

The Duchesse de Mantua obeyed with hesitation, and beheld in this little
chased coffer a knife of rude form, the handle of which was of iron, and
the blade very rusty. It lay upon some letters carefully folded, upon
which was the name of Buckingham. She would have lifted them; Anne of
Austria stopped her.

"Seek nothing further," she said; "that is all the treasure of the
Queen. And it is a treasure; for it is the blood of a man who lives no
longer, but who lived for me. He was the most beautiful, the bravest,
the most illustrious of the nobles of Europe. He covered himself with
the diamonds of the English crown to please me. He raised up a fierce
war and armed fleets, which he himself commanded, that he might have the
happiness of once fighting him who was my husband. He traversed the seas
to gather a flower upon which I had trodden, and ran the risk of death
to kiss and bathe with his tears the foot of this bed in the presence
of two of my ladies-in-waiting. Shall I say more? Yes, I will say it to
you--I loved him! I love him still in the past more than I could love
him in the present. He never knew it, never divined it. This face, these
eyes, were marble toward him, while my heart burned and was breaking
with grief; but I was the Queen of France!" Here Anne of Austria
forcibly grasped Marie's arm. "Dare now to complain," she continued, "if
you have not yet ventured to speak to me of your love, and dare now to
be silent when I have told you these things!"

"Ah, yes, Madame, I shall dare to confide my grief to you, since you are
to me--"

"A friend, a woman!" interrupted the Queen. "I was a woman in my terror,