e,
the time is come; what you are about to decide upon will be decided for
life. Oh, sire! you are willing, then, that I should lose you? You
are willing, then, Louis, that she to whom you have said 'I love you,'
should belong to another than to her king, to her master, to her lover?
Oh! courage, Louis! courage! One word, a single word! Say 'I will!' and
all my life is enchained to yours, and all my heart is yours forever."

The king made no reply. Mary then looked at him as Dido looked at Aeneas
in the Elysian fields, fierce and disdainful.

"Farewell, then," said she; "farewell life! love! heaven!"

And she took a step away. The king detained her, seizing her hand, which
he pressed to his lips, and despair prevailing over the resolution he
appeared to have inwardly formed, he let fall upon that beautiful hand
a burning tear of regret, which made Mary start, so really had that
tear burnt her. She saw the humid eyes of the king, his pale brow, his
convulsed lips, and cried, with an accent that cannot be described,--

"Oh, sire! you are a king, you weep, and yet I depart!"

As his sole reply, the king hid his face in his handkerchief. The
officer uttered something so like a roar that it frightened the horses.
Mademoiselle de Mancini, quite indignant, quitted the king's arm,
hastily entered the carriage, crying to the coachman, "Go on, go on, and
quick!"

The coachman obeyed, flogging his mules, and the heavy carriage rocked
upon its creaking axle, whilst the king of France, alone, cast down,
annihilated, did not dare to look either behind or before him.

Chapter XIV. In which the King and the Lieutenant each give Proofs of
Memory.

When the king, like all the people in the world who are in love, had
long and attentively watched disappear in the distance the carriage
which bore away his mistress; when he had turned and turned again a
hundred times to the same side and had at length succeeded in somewhat
calming the agitation of his heart and thoughts, he recollected that he
was not alone. The officer still held the horse by the bridle, and had
not lost all hope of seeing the king recover his resolution. He had
still the resource of mounting and riding after the carriage; they
would have lost nothing by waiting a little. But the imagination of the
lieutenant of the musketeers was too rich and too brilliant; it left
far behind it that of the king, who took care not to allow himself to be
carried away to such ex