desire ruin my whole life!"

"Well, do you want to aid me to realize this desire, which would make
you still happier?"

"Oh! I should lose you, madame," cried La Mole hiding his head in his
hands.

"No, on the contrary. Instead of being the first of my servants, you
would become the first of my subjects, that is all."

"Oh! no interest--no ambition, madame--do not sully the feeling I have
for you--the devotion, nothing but devotion!"

"Noble nature!" said Marguerite; "well, yes, I accept your devotion, and
I shall find out how to reward it."

She extended both her hands, and La Mole covered them with kisses.

"Well!" said she.

"Well, yes!" replied La Mole, "yes, Marguerite, I am beginning to
comprehend this vague project already talked of by us Huguenots before
the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the scheme for the execution of which
I, like many another worthier than myself, was sent to Paris. You covet
this actual kingdom of Navarre which is to take the place of an
imaginary kingdom. King Henry drives you to it; De Mouy conspires with
you, does he not? But the Duc d'Alencon, what is he doing in it all?
Where is there a throne for him? I do not see. Now, is the Duc d'Alencon
sufficiently your--friend to aid you in all this without asking anything
in exchange for the danger he runs?"

"The duke, my friend, is conspiring on his own account. Let us leave him
to his illusions. His life answers for ours."

"But I, who belong to him, can I betray him?"

"Betray him! In what are you betraying him? What has he confided to you?
Is it not he who has betrayed you by giving your cloak and hat to De
Mouy as a means of gaining him admittance to his apartments? You belong
to him, you say! Were you not mine, my gentleman, before you were his?
Has he given you a greater proof of friendship than the proof of love
you have from me?"

La Mole arose, pale and completely overcome.

"Oh!" he murmured, "Coconnas was right, intrigue is enveloping me in its
folds. It will suffocate me."

"Well?" asked Marguerite.

"Well," said La Mole, "this is my answer: it is said, and I heard it at
the other end of France, where your illustrious name and your universal
reputation for beauty touched my heart like a vague desire for the
unknown,--it is said that sometimes you love, but that your love is
always fatal to those you love, so that death, jealous, no doubt, almost
always removes your lovers."

"La Mole!"

"Do not interrupt m