."

"Well, sire," said Marguerite, shuddering, "I will go to the ball."

A tear, which soon dried on his parched eyelid, moistened Charles's eye.

He leaned over his sister, kissed her forehead, paused an instant before
Henriette, who had neither seen nor heard him, and murmured:

"Poor woman!"

Then he went out silently.

Soon after several pages entered, bringing boxes and jewel-caskets.

Marguerite made a sign for them to set everything down.

Gillonne looked at her mistress in astonishment.

"Yes," said Marguerite, in a tone the bitterness of which it is
impossible to describe; yes, I will dress and go to the ball; I am
expected. Make haste; the day will then be complete. A fete on the Greve
in the morning, a fete in the Louvre in the evening."

"And the duchess?" said Gillonne.

"She is quite happy. She may remain here; she can weep; she can suffer
at her ease. She is not the daughter of a king, the wife of a king, the
sister of a king. She is not a queen. Help me to dress, Gillonne."

The young girl obeyed. The jewels were magnificent, the dress gorgeous.
Marguerite had never been so beautiful.

She looked at herself in a mirror.

"My brother is right," said she; "a human being is indeed a miserable
creature."

At that moment Gillonne returned.

"Madame," said she, "a man is asking for you."

"For me?"

"Yes."

"Who is he?"

"I do not know, but he is terrible to look at; the very sight of him
makes me shudder."

"Go and ask him his name," said Marguerite, turning pale.

Gillonne withdrew, and returned in a few moments.

"He will not give his name, madame, but he begged me to give you this."

Gillonne handed to Marguerite the reliquary she had given to La Mole the
previous evening.

"Oh! bring him in, bring him in!" said the queen quickly, growing paler
and more numb than before.

A heavy step shook the floor. The echo, indignant, no doubt, at having
to repeat such a sound, moaned along the wainscoting. A man stood on the
threshold.

"You are"--said the queen.

"He whom you met one day near Montfaucon, madame, and who in his tumbril
brought back two wounded gentlemen to the Louvre."

"Yes, yes, I know you. You are Maitre Caboche."

"Executioner of the provostship of Paris, madame."

These were the only words Henriette had heard for an hour. She raised
her pale face from her hands and looked at the man with her sapphire
eyes, from which a double flame seemed to dart.

"And