ble to pain."

"No; but because he has been strangled with a fine cord underneath the
scaffold, just as he was about to accuse those who let him die. Let a
doctor examine him, and I am certain that he will find round his neck
the circle that the cord has left."

"You are right!" cried Henri, with flashing eyes; "my cousin of Guise is
better served than I am!"

"Hush, my son--no eclat; we shall only be laughed at, for once more we
have missed our aim."

"Joyeuse did well to go and amuse himself elsewhere," said the king;
"one can reckon on nothing in this world--not even on punishments. Come,
ladies, let us go."

CHAPTER VI.

THE BROTHERS.

MM. De Joyeuse had, as we have seen, left this scene, and were walking
side by side in the streets generally so populous but now deserted, for
every one was in the Place de Greve. Henri seemed preoccupied and sad,
and Anne was unquiet on account of his brother. He was the first to
speak.

"Well, Henri," said he, "where are you taking me?"

"I take you nowhere, brother; I was only walking before you. Do you wish
to go anywhere?"

"Do you?"

"Oh! I do not care where I go."

"Yet you go somewhere every evening, for you always go out at the same
hour and return late at night."

"Are you questioning me, brother?" said Henri, with gentleness.

"Certainly not; let each keep his own secrets if he wishes to do so."

"If you wish it, brother, I will have no secrets from you."

"Will you not, Henri?"

"No; are you not my elder brother and friend?"

"Oh! I thought you had secrets from me, who am only a poor layman. I
thought you confessed to our learned brother, that pillar of theology,
that light of the Church, who will be a cardinal some day, and that you
obtained absolution from him, and perhaps, at the same time, advice."

Henri took his brother's hand affectionately. "You are more than a
confessor to me, my dear Anne--more than a father; you are my friend."

"Then, my friend, why, from so gay as you used to be, have I seen you
become sad? and why, instead of going out by day, do you only go out at
night?"

"My brother, I am not sad."

"What, then?"

"In love."

"Good! And this preoccupation?"

"Is because I am always thinking of my love."

"And you sigh in saying that?"

"Yes."

"You sigh?--you, Henri, comte de Bouchage?--you, the brother of
Joyeuse?--you, whom some people call the third king in France? You know
M. de Guise is the second, if no