ed a vigil as was sometimes exacted by the
more wakeful princesses; but Eustacie could not escape from it till it
was already almost midnight, the period for her tryst.

Her heart was very full. It was not the usual flutter and terror of an
eloping girl. Eustacie was a fearless little being, and her conscience
had no alarms; her affections were wholly with Berenger, and her
transient glimpses of him had been as of something come out of a region
higher, tenderer, stronger, purer, more trustworthy than that where she
had dwelt. She was proud of belonging to him. She had felt upheld by the
consciousness through years of waiting, and now he more than realized
her hopes, and she could have wept for exulting joy. Yet it was a
strange, stealthy break with all she had to leave behind. The light
to which he belonged seemed strange, chill, dazzling light, and she
shivered at the thought of it, as if the new world, new ideas, and new
requirements could only be endured with him to shield her and help her
on. And withal, there seemed to her a shudder over the whole place on
that night. The King's eyes looked wild and startled, the Queen-mother's
calm was strained, the Duchess of Lorraine was evidently in a state of
strong nervous excitement; there were strange sounds, strange people
moving about, a weight on everything, as if they were under the shadow
of a thunder-cloud. 'Could it be only her own fancy?' she said to
herself, because this was to be the great event of her life, for surely
all these great people could not know or heed that little Eustacie de
Ribaumont was to make her escape that night!

The trains of royalty were not sumptuously lodged. France never has
cared so much for comfort as for display. The waiting-lady of the
bedchamber slept in the ante-room of her mistress; the others, however
high their rank, were closely herded together up a winding stair
leading to a small passage, with tiny, cell-like recesses, wherein the
demoiselles slept, often with their maids, and then dressed themselves
in the space afforded by the passage. Eustacie's cell was nearly at the
end of the gallery, and exchanging 'good-nights' with her companions,
she proceeded to her recess, where she expected to find Veronique ready
to adjust her dress. Veronique, however, was missing; but anxious to
lose no time, she had taken off her delicate white satin farthingale to
change it for an unobtrusive dark woolen kirtle, when, to her surprise
and dism