once more it will be upon your rising fortunes that every eye
in France will turn."

The lady's brow clouded, and she glanced at the prelate as though his
speech were not altogether to her taste. "I trust that pride does not
lead me astray," she said. "But if I can read my own soul aright, there
is no thought of myself in the grief which now tears my heart. What is
power to me? What do I desire? A little room, leisure for my
devotions, a pittance to save me from want--what more can I ask for?
Why, then, should I covet power? If I am sore at heart, it is not for
any poor loss which I have sustained. I think no more of it than of the
snapping of one of the threads on yonder tapestry frame. It is for the
king I grieve--for the noble heart, the kindly soul, which might rise so
high, and which is dragged so low, like a royal eagle with some foul
weight which ever hampers its flight. It is for him and for France that
my days are spent in sorrow and my nights upon my knees."

"For all that, my daughter, you are ambitious."

It was the Jesuit who had spoken. His voice was clear and cold, and his
piercing gray eyes seemed to read into the depths of her soul.

"You may be right, father. God guard me from self-esteem. And yet I do
not think that I am. The king, in his goodness, has offered me titles--
I have refused them; money--I have returned it. He has deigned to ask
my advice in matters of state, and I have withheld it. Where, then, is
my ambition?"

"In your heart, my daughter. But it is not a sinful ambition. It is
not an ambition of this world. Would you not love to turn the king
towards good?"

"I would give my life for it."

"And there is your ambition. Ah, can I not read your noble soul?
Would you not love to see the Church reign pure and serene over all this
realm--to see the poor housed, the needy helped, the wicked turned from
their ways, and the king ever the leader in all that is noble and good?
Would you not love that, my daughter?"

Her cheeks had flushed, and her eyes shone as she looked at the gray
face of the Jesuit, and saw the picture which his words had conjured up
before her. "Ah, that would be joy indeed!" she cried.

"And greater joy still to know, not from the mouths of the people, but
from the voice of your own heart in the privacy of your chamber, that
you had been the cause of it, that your influence had brought this
blessing upon the king and upon the country."

"I wo