added, as the drapery again closed
over the portal, "dry your tears; I owe you some recompense for all that
you have suffered, and I will not be tardy in my requital."

At this instant some one scratched upon the door of the royal closet.

"Again!" cried the Queen indignantly. "See who waits, Madame du Fargis."

The Countess proceeded to draw aside the tapestry. "Madame," she said,
as she retired a pace or two with a profound curtsey, "his Majesty
the King."

"Ha!" exclaimed the Regent, starting from her seat, and advancing
towards the young sovereign, whom she tenderly embraced, "your visit
could not have been more welcome or better-timed, my son. The death of
M. de Fervaques has created a vacancy which must be at once filled, and
I have a marshal's commission for you to sign."

The wife of Concini gazed eagerly into the face of her royal mistress.
Marie smiled. "Go, Madame," she said affectionately, "and bid the
Marquis d'Ancre hasten here upon the instant to kiss the gracious hand
from which he is about to receive a marshal's _baton_."

Leonora knelt before the startled King, who suffered her in silence to
perform the same ceremony; and then radiant with happiness she pressed
the jewelled fingers of the Queen to her quivering lips. "And hark you,
Leonora," pursued Marie, "cause Concini to be announced by his new title
when he seeks admission here. This will at once put an end to a host of
rivalries which are now unavailing."

Madame d'Ancre hastily withdrew; but as she passed through the
apartments of the Queen she remarked that the antechamber was already
thronged with a crowd of courtiers, who had been attracted thither by
curiosity; while they, in their turn, did not fail to detect in the
flushed cheek and flashing eye of the Marquise the indications of some
new triumph. Little, however, were they prepared for its extent; and
when Concini, some minutes afterwards, appeared, with a sarcastic smile
upon his lips, and glanced a look of defiance around him, even while he
bowed right and left alike to his friends and to his enemies, every
pulse quickened with anxiety. The suspense was but momentary. The
Italian was preceded by one of the royal pages, who, as the captain of
the guard flung back the door of the cabinet in which Louis XIII was
still closeted with his mother, announced in a voice so audible that it
was heard throughout the apartment, "Monseigneur le Marechal d'Ancre."

"Concini a Marshal of France!