s expenditure, he is further saddled with the debts of the
Prince de Guimenee."

"And you can believe," the King cried, "that a Prince of the House of
Rohan, however pressed for money, could--Oh, it is unimaginable!"

"Yet has he not stolen my name?" the Queen cut in. "Is he not proven a
common, stupid forger?"

"We have not heard him," the King reminded her gently.

"And His Eminence might be able to explain," ventured Miromesnil. "It
were certainly prudent to give him the opportunity."

Slowly the King nodded his great, powdered head. "Go and find him. Bring
him at once!" he bade Breteuil; and Breteuil bowed and departed.

Very soon he returned, and he held the door whilst the handsome
Cardinal, little dreaming what lay before him, serene and calm, a
commanding figure in his cassock of scarlet watered silk, rustled
forward into the royal presence, and so came face to face with the Queen
for the first time since that romantic night a year ago in the Grove of
Venus.

Abruptly the King launched his thunderbolt.

"Cousin," he asked, "what purchase is this of a diamond necklace that
you are said to have made in the Queen's name?"

King and Cardinal looked into each other's eyes, the King's narrowing,
the Cardinal's dilating, the King leaning forward in his chair, elbows
on the table, the Cardinal standing tense and suddenly rigid.

Slowly the colour ebbed from Rohan's face, leaving it deathly pale. His
eyes sought the Queen, and found her contemptuous glance, her curling
lip. Then at last his handsome head sank a little forward.

"Sire," he said unsteadily, "I see that I have been duped. But I have
duped nobody."

"You have no reason to be troubled, then. You need but to explain."

Explain! That was precisely what he could not do. Besides, what was
the nature of the explanation demanded of him? Whilst he stood stricken
there, it was the Queen who solved this question.

"If, indeed, you have been duped," she said scornfully, her colour high,
her eyes like points of steel, "you have been self-duped. But even then
it is beyond belief that self-deception could have urged you to the
lengths of passing yourself off as my intermediary--you, who should know
yourself to be the last man in France I should employ, you to whom I
have not spoken once in eight years." Tears of anger glistened in her
eyes; her voice shrilled up. "And yet, since you have not denied it,
since you put forward this pitiful plea that you have