The Queen reflected a moment, laying her finger upon her lips.  “You are right,” she then replied; “you are quite right.  Marie, it is always the first word which is the most difficult to say; and that difficulty often destroys us.  But it must be so; and without this rule one would be often wanting in dignity.  Ah, how difficult it is to reign!  To-day I would descend into your heart, but I come too late to do you good.”

Marie de Mantua hung her head without making any reply.

“Must I encourage you to speak?” said the Queen.  “Must I remind you that I have almost adopted you for my eldest daughter? that after seeking to unite you with the King’s brother, I prepared for you the throne of Poland?  Must I do more, Marie?  Yes, I must, I will.  If afterward you do not open your whole heart to me, I have misjudged you.  Open this golden casket; here is the key.  Open it fearlessly; do not tremble as I do.”

The Duchesse de Mantua obeyed with hesitation, and beheld in this little chased coffer a knife of rude form, the handle of which was of iron, and the blade very rusty.  It lay upon some letters carefully folded, upon which was the name of Buckingham.  She would have lifted them; Anne of Austria stopped her.

“Seek nothing further,” she said; “that is all the treasure of the Queen.  And it is a treasure; for it is the blood of a man who lives no longer, but who lived for me.  He was the most beautiful, the bravest, the most illustrious of the nobles of Europe.  He covered himself with the diamonds of the English crown to please me.  He raised up a fierce war and armed fleets, which he himself commanded, that he might have the happiness of once fighting him who was my husband.  He traversed the seas to gather a flower upon which I had trodden, and ran the risk of death to kiss and bathe with his tears the foot of this bed in the presence of two of my ladies-in-waiting.  Shall I say more?  Yes, I will say it to you—­I loved him!  I love him still in the past more than I could love him in the present.  He never knew it, never divined it.  This face, these eyes, were marble toward him, while my heart burned and was breaking with grief; but I was the Queen of France!” Here Anne of Austria forcibly grasped Marie’s arm.  “Dare now to complain,” she continued, “if you have not yet ventured to speak to me of your love, and dare now to be silent when I have told you these things!”

“Ah, yes, Madame, I shall dare to confide my grief to you, since you are to me—­”

“A friend, a woman!” interrupted the Queen.  “I was a woman in my terror, which put you in possession of a secret unknown to the whole world.  I am a woman by a love which survives the man I loved.  Speak; tell me!  It is now time.”

“It is too late, on the contrary,” replied Marie, with a forced smile.  “Monsieur de Cinq-Mars and I are united forever.”

“Forever!” exclaimed the Queen.  “Can you mean it?  And your rank, your name, your future—­is all lost?  Do you reserve this despair for your brother, the Duc de Bethel, and all the Gonzagas?”