health.

The queen mother was amazed at this turn of affairs. She accepted
Henry's gift mechanically, appeared agitated, complimented him on
looking so well, and added:

"I am all the more pleased to see you looking so, because I heard that
you were ill, and because, if I remember rightly, you yourself
complained of not feeling well, in my presence. But I understand now,"
she added, trying to smile, "it was an excuse so that you might be
free."

"No, I have really been very ill, madame," said Henry, "but a specific
used in our mountains, and which comes from my mother, has cured my
indisposition."

"Ah! you will give me the recipe, will you not, Henry?" said Catharine,
really smiling this time, but with an irony she could not disguise.

"Some counter-poison," she murmured. "We must look into this; but no,
seeing Madame de Sauve ill, it will be suspected. Indeed, I believe that
the hand of God is over this man."

Catharine waited impatiently for the night. Madame de Sauve did not
appear. At play she inquired for her, but was told that she was
suffering more and more.

All the evening she was restless, and everyone anxiously wondered what
were the thoughts which could move this face usually so calm.

At length everyone retired. Catharine had herself undressed and put to
bed by her ladies-in-waiting. Then when everyone had gone to sleep in
the Louvre, she rose, slipped on a long black dressing-gown, took a
lamp, chose from her keys the one which unlocked the door of Madame de
Sauve's apartments, and ascended the stairs to see her maid-of-honor.

Had Henry foreseen this visit? Was he busy in his own rooms? Was he
hiding somewhere? However this may have been, the young woman was alone.
Catharine opened the door cautiously, crossed the antechamber, entered
the reception-room, set her lamp on a table, for a night lamp was
burning near the sick woman, and glided like a shadow into the
sleeping-room. Dariole in a deep armchair was sleeping near the bed of
her mistress.

This bed was entirely shut in by curtains.

The respiration of the young woman was so light that for an instant
Catharine thought she was not breathing at all.

At length she heard a slight sigh, and with an evil joy she raised the
curtain in order to see for herself the effect of the terrible poison.
She trembled in advance at the sight of the livid pallor or the
devouring purple of the mortal fever she hoped for. But instead of this,
calm, with