I am not strong enough.
It is not banishment, it is death to which you sentence me. Think of
our long years of love, sire, and say that you forgive me. I have given
up all for your sake--husband, honour, everything. Oh, will you not
give your anger up for mine? My God, he weeps! Oh, I am saved, I am
saved!"

"No, no, madame," cried the king, dashing his hand across his eyes.
"You see the weakness of the man, but you shall also see the firmness of
the king. As to your insults to-day, I forgive them freely, if that
will make you more happy in your retirement. But I owe a duty to my
subjects also, and that duty is to set them an example. We have thought
too little of such things. But a time has come when it is necessary to
review our past life, and to prepare for that which is to come."

"Ah, sire, you pain me. You are not yet in the prime of your years, and
you speak as though old age were upon you. In a score of years from now
it may be time for folk to say that age has made a change in your life."

The king winced. "Who says so?" he cried angrily.

"Oh, sire, it slipped from me unawares. Think no more of it. Nobody
says so. Nobody."

"You are hiding something from me. Who is it who says this?"

"Oh, do not ask me, sire."

"You said that it was reported that I had changed my life not through
religion, but through stress of years. Who said so?"

"Oh, sire, it was but foolish court gossip, all unworthy of your
attention. It was but the empty common talk of cavaliers who had
nothing else to say to gain a smile from their ladies."

"The common talk?" Louis flushed crimson.

"Have I, then, grown so aged? You have known me for nearly twenty
years. Do you see such changes in me?"

"To me, sire, you are as pleasing and as gracious as when you first won
the heart of Mademoiselle Tonnay-Charente."

The king smiled as he looked at the beautiful woman before him.

"In very truth," said he, "I can say that there has been no such great
change in Mademoiselle Tonnay-Charente either. But still it is best
that we should part, Francoise."

"If it will add aught to your happiness, sire, I shall go through it, be
it to my death."

"Now that is the proper spirit."

"You have but to name the place, sire--Petit Bourg, Chargny, or my own
convent of St. Joseph in the Faubourg St. Germain. What matter where
the flower withers, when once the sun has forever turned from it?
At least, the past is my own, an