t
his lip, stamped his foot on the ground, and, in a word, devoured
the bitterness of his grief. "Madame," he said, "what you offer is
impossible, and I cannot accept such conditions."

"What!" said Madame, "do you refuse my friendship, then?"

"No, no! I do not need your friendship, Madame. I prefer to die from
love, than to live for friendship."

"Comte!"

"Oh! Madame," cried De Guiche, "the present is a moment for me, in
which no other consideration and no other respect exist, than the
consideration and respect of a man of honor towards the woman he
worships. Drive me away, curse me, denounce me, you will be perfectly
right. I have uttered complaints against you, but their bitterness has
been owing to my passion for you; I have said I wish to die, and die I
will. If I lived, you would forget me; but dead, you would never forget
me, I am sure."

Henrietta, who was standing buried in thought, and nearly as agitated as
De Guiche himself, turned aside her head as but a minute before he had
turned aside his. Then, after a moment's pause, she said, "And you love
me, then, very much?"

"Madly; madly enough to die from it, whether you drive me from you, or
whether you listen to me still."

"It is a hopeless case," she said, in a playful manner; "a case which
must be treated with soothing application. Give me your hand. It is as
cold as ice." De Guiche knelt down, and pressed to his lips, not one,
but both of Madame's hands.

"Love me, then," said the princess, "since it cannot be otherwise." And
almost imperceptibly she pressed his fingers, raising him thus, partly
in the manner of a queen, and partly as a fond and affectionate woman
would have done. De Guiche trembled from head to foot, and Madame, who
felt how passion coursed through every fiber of his being, knew that
he indeed loved truly. "Give me your arm, comte," she said, "and let us
return."

"Ah! Madame," said the comte, trembling and bewildered; "you have
discovered a third way of killing me."

"But, happily, it is the slowest way, is it not?" she replied, as she
led him towards the grove of trees they had so lately quitted.

Chapter XLVI. Aramis's Correspondence.

When De Guiche's affairs, which had been suddenly set to right without
his having been able to guess the cause of their improvement, assumed
the unexpected aspect we have seen, Raoul, in obedience to the request
of the princess, had withdrawn in order not to interrupt an explanation,