you have overrated this gentleman's
ingenuity, though doubtless it has been much exercised in your service."

Henry's face grew red with vexation. "Speak, man!" he cried. "How
came she by it?"

"Madame de Verneuil?" I said.

The queen laughed again. "Had you not better take him out first, sir,"
she said scornfully, "and tell him what to say?"

"'Fore God, madame," the King cried passionately, "you try me too far!
Have I not told you a hundred times, and sworn to you, that I did not
give Madame de Verneuil this key?"

"If you did not give her that," the queen muttered sullenly, picking at
the silken coverlet which lay on her feet, "you have given her all
else. You cannot deny it."

Henry let a gesture of despair escape him. "Are we to go back to
that?" he said. Then turning to me, "Tell her," he said between his
teeth; "and tell me. VENTRE SAINT GRIS--are you dumb, man?"

Discerning nothing for it at the moment save to bow before this storm,
which had arisen so suddenly, and from a quarter the least expected, I
hastened to comply. I had not proceeded far with my story,
however--which fell short, of course, of explaining how the key came to
be in Madame de Verneuil's hands--before I saw that it won no credence
with the queen, but rather confirmed her in her belief that the King
had given to another what he had denied to her. And more; I saw that
in proportion as the tale failed to convince her, it excited the King's
wrath and disappointment. He several times cut me short with
expressions of the utmost impatience, and at last, when I came to a
lame conclusion--since I could explain nothing except that the key was
gone--he could restrain himself no longer. In a tone in which he had
never addressed me before, he asked me why I had not, on the instant,
communicated the loss to him; and when I would have defended myself by
adducing the reason I have given above, overwhelmed me with abuse and
reproaches, which, as they were uttered in the queen's presence, and
would be repeated, I knew, to the Concinis and Galigais of her suite,
who had no occasion to love me, carried a double sting.

Nevertheless, for a time, and until he had somewhat worn himself out, I
let Henry proceed. Then, taking advantage of the first pause, I
interposed. Reminding him that he had never had cause to accuse me of
carelessness before, I recalled the twenty-two years during which I had
served him faithfully, and the enmities I had