myself I have never known, for at
no time has life so pampered me that the thought of parting company
with it concerned me greatly. Fear for another I had not known till
then--saving perchance the uneasiness that at times I had felt touching
Andrea--because never yet had I sufficiently cared.

Thus far my thoughts took me, as I rode, and where I have halted did
they halt, and stupidly I went over their ground again, like one who
gropes for something in the dark,--because never yet had I sufficiently
cared--I had never cared.

And then, ah Dieu! As I turned the thought over I understood, and,
understanding, I pursued the sentence where I had left off.

But, caring at last, I was sick with fear of what might befall the one I
cared for! There lay the reason of the frenzied excitement whereof I had
become the slave. That it was that had brought the moisture to my brow
and curses to my lips; that it was that had caused me instinctively to
thrust the rag of green velvet within my doublet.

Ciel! It was strange--aye, monstrous strange, and a right good jest for
fate to laugh at--that I, Gaston de Luynes, vile ruffler and worthless
spadassin, should have come to such a pass; I, whose forefinger had for
the past ten years uptilted the chin of every tavern wench I had chanced
upon; I, whose lips had never known the touch of other than the lips of
these; I, who had thought my heart long dead to tenderness and devotion,
or to any fondness save the animal one for my ignoble self. Yet there I
rode as if the Devil had me for a quarry,--panting, sweating, cursing,
and well-nigh sobbing with rage at a fear that I might come too
late,--all because of a proud lady who knew me for what I was and held
me in contempt because of her knowledge; all for a lady who had not
the kindness for me that one might spare a dog--who looked on me as
something not good to see.

Since there was no one to whom I might tell my story that he might mock
me, I mocked myself--with a laugh that startled passers-by and which,
coupled with the crazy pace at which I dashed into Blois, caused them, I
doubt not, to think me mad. Nor were they wrong, for mad indeed I deemed
myself.

That I trampled no one underfoot in my furious progress through the
streets is a miracle that passes my understanding.

In the courtyard of the Lys de France I drew rein at last with a tug
that brought my shuddering brute on to his haunches and sent those who
stood about flying into