to show in the massacres
redoubled the ardor of the assassins, and while every street, every
square, every alley-way of the city continued to present a scene of
desolation, the Louvre had become the common tomb for all Protestants
who had been shut up there when the signal was given. The King of
Navarre, the Prince de Conde, and La Mole were the only survivors.

Assured as to La Mole, whose wounds, as she had declared the evening
before, were severe but not dangerous, Marguerite's mind was now
occupied with one single idea: that was to save her husband's life,
which was still threatened. No doubt the first sentiment which actuated
the wife was one of generous pity for a man for whom, as the Bearnais
himself had said, she had sworn, if not love, at least alliance; but
there was, beside, another sentiment not so pure, which had penetrated
the queen's heart.

Marguerite was ambitious, and had foreseen almost the certainty of
royalty in her marriage with Henry de Bourbon. Navarre, though beset on
one side by the kings of France and on the other by the kings of Spain,
who strip by strip had absorbed half of its territory, might become a
real kingdom with the French Huguenots for subjects, if only Henry de
Bourbon should fulfil the hopes which the courage shown by him on the
infrequent occasions vouchsafed him of drawing his sword had aroused.

Marguerite, with her keen, lofty intellect, foresaw and reckoned on all
this. So if she lost Henry she lost not only a husband, but a throne.

As she was absorbed in these reflections she heard some one knocking at
the door of the secret corridor. She started, for only three persons
came by that door,--the King, the queen mother, and the Duc d'Alencon.
She opened the closet door, made a gesture of silence to Gillonne and La
Mole, and then went to let her visitor in.

It was the Duc d'Alencon.

The young prince had not been seen since the night before. For a moment,
Marguerite had conceived the idea of asking his intercession for the
King of Navarre, but a terrible idea restrained her. The marriage had
taken place against his wishes. Francois detested Henry, and had evinced
his neutrality toward the Bearnais only because he was convinced that
Henry and his wife had remained strangers to each other. A mark of
interest shown by Marguerite in her husband might thrust one of the
three threatening poniards into his heart instead of turning it aside.
Marguerite, therefore, on perceiving