this point, madame."

"My God! How terrible must those other points have been!"

"I have never had an evil thought towards you."

"None towards me? Oh, woman, woman!"

"What have I done, then? The king came to my room to see the children
taught. He stayed. He talked. He asked my opinion on this and that.
Could I be silent? or could I say other than what I thought?"

"You turned him against me!"

"I should be proud indeed if I thought that I had turned him to virtue."

"The word comes well from your lips."

"I would that I heard it upon yours."

"And so, by your own confession, you stole the king's love from me, most
virtuous of widows!"

"I had all gratitude and kindly thought for you. You have, as you have
so often reminded me, been my benefactress. It was not necessary for
you to say it, for I had never for an instant forgotten it. Yet if the
king has asked me what I thought, I will not deny to you that I have
said that sin is sin, and that he would be a worthier man if he shook
off the guilty bonds which held him."

"Or exchanged them for others."

"For those of duty."

"Pah! Your hypocrisy sickens me! If you pretend to be a nun, why are
you not where the nuns are? You would have the best of two worlds--
would you not?--have all that the court can give, and yet ape the
manners of the cloister. But you need not do it with me! I know you as
your inmost heart knows you. I was honest, and what I did, I did before
the world. You, behind your priests and your directors and your
_prie-dieus_ and your missals--do you think that you deceive me, as you
deceive others?"

Her antagonist's gray eyes sparkled for the first time, and she took a
quick step forward, with one white hand half lifted in rebuke.

"You may speak as you will of me," said she. "To me it is no more than
the foolish paroquet that chatters in your ante-room. But do not touch
upon things which are sacred. Ah, if you would but raise your own
thoughts to such things--if you would but turn them inwards, and see,
before it is too late, how vile and foul is this life which you have
led! What might you not have done? His soul was in your hands like
clay for the potter. If you had raised him up, if you had led him on
the higher path, if you had brought out all that was noble and good
within him, how your name would have been loved and blessed, from the
chateau to the cottage! But no; you dragged him down; you wasted his
youth;