is in the
desert!"'

The monk mumbled assent.

'And later in the same psalm, is it not written, "They shall perish, but
thou shalt endure?"'

'It is so,' the father answered. 'Amen.'

'Doubtless though, that refers to another life,' the Cardinal said, with
his slow wintry smile. 'In the meantime we will go back to our books,
and serve God and the King in small things if not in great. Come,
father, this is no longer a place for us. VANITAS VANITATUM OMNIA
VANITAS! We will retire.'

And as solemnly as we had come we marched back through the first and
second and third doors until we stood again in the silence of the
Cardinal's chamber--he and I and the velvet-footed man in black. For a
while Richelieu seemed to forget me. He stood brooding on the hearth,
his eyes on a small fire, which burned there though the weather was
warm. Once I heard him laugh, and twice he uttered in a tone of bitter
mockery the words,--

'Fools! Fools! Fools!'

At last he looked up, saw me, and started.

'Ah!' he said, 'I had forgotten you. Well, you are fortunate, M. de
Berault. Yesterday I had a hundred clients; to-day I have only one,
and I cannot afford to hang him. But for your liberty that is another
matter.'

I would have said something, pleaded something; but he turned abruptly
to the table, and sitting down wrote a few lines on a piece of paper.
Then he rang his bell, while I stood waiting and confounded.

The man in black came from behind the screen.

'Take this letter and that gentleman to the upper guard-room,' the
Cardinal said sharply. 'I can hear no more,' he continued, frowning and
raising his hand to forbid interruption. 'The matter is ended, M. de
Berault. Be thankful.'

In a moment I was outside the door, my head in a whirl, my heart divided
between gratitude and resentment. I would fain have stood to consider
my position; but I had no time. Obeying a gesture, I followed my guide
along several passages, and everywhere found the same silence, the same
monastic stillness. At length, while I was dolefully considering whether
the Bastille or the Chatelet would be my fate, he stopped at a door,
thrust the letter into my hands, and lifting the latch, signed to me to
enter.

I went in in amazement, and stopped in confusion. Before me, alone, just
risen from a chair, with her face one moment pale, the next crimson with
blushes, stood Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. I cried out her name.

'M. de Berault,' she said, trembl