y bewilder me; I have been culpable
in trying to serve you, without calculating the extent of what I was
doing. I love you in reality, as a tender friend; and as a friend, I am
grateful for your delicate attentions--but, alas!--alas! you will never
find a mistress in me."

"Marquise!" cried Fouquet, in a tone of despair; "why not?"

"Because you are too much beloved," said the young woman, in a low
voice; "because you are too much beloved by too many people--because
the splendor of glory and fortune wound my eyes, whilst the darkness
of sorrow attracts them; because, in short, I, who have repulsed you in
your proud magnificence; I who scarcely looked at you in your splendor,
I came, like a mad woman, to throw myself, as it were, into your arms,
when I saw a misfortune hovering over your head. You understand me now,
monseigneur? Become happy again, that I may remain chaste in heart and
in thought: your misfortune entails my ruin."

"Oh! madame," said Fouquet, with an emotion he had never before felt;
"were I to fall to the lowest degree of human misery, and hear from your
mouth that word which you now refuse me, that day, madame, you will
be mistaken in your noble egotism; that day you will fancy you are
consoling the most unfortunate of men, and you will have said, _I love
you_, to the most illustrious, the most delighted, the most triumphant
of the happy beings of this world."

He was still at her feet, kissing her hand, when Pelisson entered
precipitately, crying, in very ill-humor, "Monseigneur! madame! for
Heaven's sake! excuse me. Monseigneur, you have been here half an hour.
Oh! do not both look at me so reproachfully. Madame, pray who is that
lady who left your house soon after monseigneur came in?"

"Madame Vanel," said Fouquet.

"Ha!" cried Pelisson, "I was sure of that."

"Well! what then?"

"Why, she got into her carriage, looking deadly pale."

"What consequence is that to me?"

"Yes, but what she said to her coachman is of consequence to you."

"Kind heaven!" cried the marquise, "what was that?"

"To M. Colbert's!" said Pelisson, in a hoarse voice.

"_Bon Dieu!_--begone, begone, monseigneur!" replied the marquise,
pushing Fouquet out of the salon, whilst Pelisson dragged him by the
hand.

"Am I, then, indeed," said the superintendent, "become a child, to be
frightened by a shadow?"

"You are a giant," said the marquise, "whom a viper is trying to bite in
the heel."

Pelisson continued t