king coming to her. Eleven o'clock struck; then a
quarter past eleven: then half-past. The minutes dragged slowly on in
this anxiety, and yet they seemed to pass far too quickly. And now, it
struck a quarter to twelve. Midnight, midnight was near, the last, the
final hope which remained, came in its turn. With the last stroke of the
clock, the last ray of light seemed to fade away; and with the last ray,
so faded her final hope. And so, the king himself had deceived her; it
was he who had been the first to fail in keeping the oath which he had
sworn that very day; twelve hours only between his oath and his perjured
vow; it was not long, certainly, to have preserved the illusion. And so,
not only did the king not love her, but still more, he despised her whom
every one overwhelmed; he despised her to the extent even of abandoning
her to the shame of an expulsion which was equivalent to having an
ignominious sentence passed upon her; and yet, it was he, the king
himself, who was the first cause of this ignominy. A bitter smile, the
only symptom of anger which during this long conflict had passed across
the victim's angelic face, appeared upon her lips. What, in fact, now
remained on earth for her, after the king was lost to her? Nothing. But
Heaven still remained, and her thoughts flew thither. She prayed that
the proper course for her to follow might be suggested. "It is from
Heaven," she thought, "that I do expect everything; it is from Heaven I
ought to expect everything." And she looked at her crucifix with a
devotion full of tender love. "There," she said, "hangs before me a
Master who never forgets and never abandons those who do not abandon and
who do not forget Him; it is to Him alone that we must sacrifice
ourselves." And, thereupon, could any one have gazed into the recesses
of that chamber, they would have seen the poor despairing girl adopt a
final resolution, and determine upon one last plan in her mind.
Thereupon, and as her knees were no longer able to support her, she
gradually sank down upon the _prie-dieu_, and with her head pressed
against the wooden cross, her eyes fixed, and her respiration short and
quick, she watched for the earliest rays of approaching daylight. At two
o'clock in the morning she was still in the same bewilderment of mind,
or rather in the same ecstasy of feeling. Her thoughts had almost ceased
to hold any communion with the things of this world. And when she saw
the violet tints of