. In a way, it is true it is also for his wealth
that I wish to marry him. I tell you this because it is necessary that
you should know me thoroughly. Ah! to become rich by him and with him,
to owe all my happiness to him, to live in the sweetness and splendour
of luxury, to be free in our loving home, and to have no more sorrow, no
misery around us! That is my ideal! Since he has loved me I fancy myself
dressed in heavy brocades, as ladies wore in olden days; I have on my
arms and around my neck strings of pearls and precious stones; I have
horses and carriages; groves in which I take long walks, followed
by pages. Whenever I think of him my dream recommences, and I say to
myself, 'This must all come to pass, for it perfects my desire to become
a queen.' Is it, then, Monseigneur, a bad thing to love him more because
he can gratify all my childish wishing by showering down miraculous
floods of gold upon me as in fairy-tales?"

He saw then that she rose up proudly, with a charming, stately air of
a true princess, in spite of her real simplicity. And she was always
exactly like the fair maiden of other years, with the same flower-like
delicacy, the same tender tears, clear as smiles. A species of
intoxication came from her, the warm breath of which mounted to his
face--the same shadow of a remembrance which made him at night throw
himself on his devotional chair, sobbing so deeply that he disturbed the
sacred silence of the Palace. Until three o'clock in the morning of this
same day he had contended with himself again, and this long history of
love, this story of passion, would only revive and excite his incurable
wound. But behind his impassiveness nothing was seen, nothing betrayed
his effort at self-control and his attempt to conquer the beating of his
heart. Were he to lose his life's blood, drop by drop, no one should see
it flow, and he now simply became paler, was silent and immovable.

At last this great persistent silence made Angelique desperate, and she
redoubled her prayers.

"I put myself in your hands, Monseigneur. Do with me whatever you think
best; but have pity when deciding my fate."

Still, as he continued silent, he terrified her, and seemed to grow
taller than ever as he stood before her in his fearful majesty. The
deserted Cathedral, whose aisles were already dark, with its high
vaulted arches where the daylight seemed dying, made the agony of this
silence still harder to bear. In the chapel, wher