so says the news, that a change has taken
place in the king's affections. You know whom that concerns.
Afterward, the news continues, people are talking about one of the
maids of honor, respecting whom various slanderous reports are
being circulated. These vague phrases have not allowed me to sleep.
I have been deploring, ever since yesterday, that my diffidence and
vacillation of purpose should, notwithstanding a certain obstinacy
of character I may possess, have left me unable to reply to these
insinuations. In a word, therefore, M. de Wardes was setting off
for Paris, and I did not delay his departure with explanations;
for it seemed rather hard, I confess, to cross-examine a man whose
wounds are hardly yet closed. In short, he traveled by short
stages, as he was anxious to leave, he said, in order to be present
at a curious spectacle which the court cannot fail to offer within
a very short time. He added a few congratulatory words, accompanied
by certain sympathizing expressions. I could not understand the one
any more than the other; I was bewildered by my own thoughts, and
then tormented by a mistrust of this man--a mistrust which, you
know better than anyone else, I have never been able to overcome.
As soon as he left, my perception seemed to become clearer. It is
hardly possible that a man of De Wardes' character should not have
communicated something of his own malicious nature to the
statements he made to me. It is not unlikely, therefore, that in
the mysterious hints which De Wardes threw out in my presence,
there may not be a mysterious signification, which I might have
some difficulty in applying either to myself or to some one with
whom you are acquainted. Being compelled to leave as soon as
possible, in obedience to the king's commands, the idea did not
occur to me of running after De Wardes in order to ask him to
explain his reserve, but I have dispatched a courier to you with
this letter, which will explain in detail all my various doubts. I
regard you as myself. It is you who have thought, and it will be
for you to act. M. de Wardes will arrive very shortly; endeavor to
learn what he meant, if you do not already know it. M. de Wardes,
moreover, pretended that the Duke of Buckingham left Paris on the
very best of terms with Madame.