re put into prison I will be your fellow-captive; if they
kill you, I will also die."

And she offered her husband her hand, which he eagerly seized, if not
with love, at least with gratitude.

"Oh, my poor Margot!" said Charles, "you had much better bid him become
a Catholic!"

"Sire," replied Marguerite, with that lofty dignity which was so natural
to her, "for your own sake do not ask any prince of your house to commit
a cowardly act."

Catharine darted a significant glance at Charles.

"Brother," cried Marguerite, who equally well with Charles IX.
understood Catharine's ominous pantomime, "my brother, remember! you
made him my husband!"

Charles IX., at bay between Catharine's commanding eyes and Marguerite's
supplicating look, as if between the two opposing principles of good and
evil, stood for an instant undecided; at last Ormazd won the day.

"In truth," said he, whispering in Catharine's ear, "Margot is right,
and Harry is my brother-in-law."

"Yes," replied Catharine in a similar whisper in her son's ear,
"yes--but supposing he were not?"

CHAPTER XI.

THE HAWTHORN OF THE CEMETERY OF THE INNOCENTS.

As soon as Marguerite reached her own apartments she tried in vain to
divine the words which Catharine de Medicis had whispered to Charles
IX., and which had cut short the terrible council of life and death
which was taking place.

She spent a part of the morning in attending to La Mole, and the rest in
trying to guess the enigma, which her mind could not discover.

The King of Navarre remained a prisoner in the Louvre, the persecution
of the Huguenots went on hotter than ever. The terrible night was
followed by a day of massacre still more horrible. No longer the bells
rang the tocsin, but _Te Deums_, and the echoes of these joyous notes,
resounding amid fire and slaughter, were perhaps even more lugubrious in
sunlight than had been the last night's knell sounding in darkness. This
was not all. A strange thing had happened: a hawthorn-tree, which had
blossomed in the spring, and which, as usual, had lost its odorous
flowers in the month of June, had blossomed again during the night, and
the Catholics, who saw a miracle in this event, spread the report of the
miracle far and wide, thus making God their accomplice; and with cross
and banners they marched in a procession to the Cemetery of the
Innocents, where this hawthorn-tree was blooming.

This method of acquiescence which Heaven seemed