they have perhaps
been mistaken."

"Mistaken!" cried the queen, almost suffocated by emotion; "mistaken!
what has happened, then?"

"Sir," interposed Monsieur de Flamarens to Athos, "if we are mistaken
the error has originated with the queen. I do not suppose you will
have the presumption to set it to rights--that would be to accuse Her
Majesty, Queen Anne, of falsehood."

"With the queen, sir?" replied Athos, in his calm, vibrating voice.

"Yes," murmured Flamarens, lowering his eyes.

Athos sighed deeply.

"Or rather, sir," said Aramis, with his peculiar irritating politeness,
"the error of the person who was with you when we met you in the
guardroom; for if the Comte de la Fere and I are not mistaken, we saw
you in the company of a third gentleman."

Chatillon and Flamarens started.

"Explain yourself, count!" cried the queen, whose anxiety grew greater
every moment. "On your brow I read despair--your lips falter ere you
announce some terrible tidings--your hands tremble. Oh, my God! my God!
what has happened?"

"Lord!" ejaculated the young princess, falling on her knees, "have mercy
on us!"

"Sir," said Chatillon, "if you bring bad tidings it will be cruel in you
to announce them to the queen."

Aramis went so close to Chatillon as almost to touch him.

"Sir," said he, with compressed lips and flashing eyes, "you have not
the presumption to instruct the Comte de la Fere and myself what we
ought to say here?"

During this brief altercation Athos, with his hands on his heart, his
head bent low, approached the queen and in a voice of deepest sorrow
said:

"Madame, princes--who by nature are above other men--receive from Heaven
courage to support greater misfortunes than those of lower rank, for
their hearts are elevated as their fortunes. We ought not, therefore, I
think, to act toward a queen so illustrious as your majesty as we should
act toward a woman of our lowlier condition. Queen, destined as you are
to endure every sorrow on this earth, hear the result of our unhappy
mission."

Athos, kneeling down before the queen, trembling and very cold, drew
from his bosom, inclosed in the same case, the order set in diamonds
which the queen had given to Lord de Winter and the wedding ring which
Charles I. before his death had placed in the hands of Aramis. Since the
moment he had first received these two mementoes Athos had never parted
with them.

He opened the case and offered them to the queen wi