life; but now he made more serious reflections upon this character.  And when, but just quitting the imposing assembly of conspirators, representatives of all the orders of the kingdom, his ear, wherein still resounded the masculine voices that had sworn to undertake a vast war, was struck with the first words of her for whom that war was commenced, he feared for the first time lest this naivete should be in reality simple levity, not coming from the heart.  He resolved to sound it.

“Oh, heavens! how I tremble, Henri!” she said as she entered the confessional; “you make me come without guards, without a coach.  I always tremble lest I should be seen by my people coming out of the Hotel de Nevers.  How much longer must I yet conceal myself like a criminal?  The Queen was very angry when I avowed the matter to her; and whenever she speaks to me of it, ’tis with her severe air that you know, and which always makes me weep.  Oh, I am terribly afraid!”

She was silent; Cinq-Mars replied only with a deep sigh.

“How! you do not speak to me!” she said.

“Are these, then, all your terrors?” asked Cinq-Mars, bitterly.

“Can I have greater?  Oh, ‘mon ami’, in what a tone, with what a voice, do you address me!  Are you angry because I came too late?”

“Too soon, Madame, much too soon, for the things you are to hear—­for I see you are far from prepared for them.”

Marie, affected at the gloomy and bitter tone of his voice, began to weep.

“Alas, what have I done,” she said, “that you should call me Madame, and treat me thus harshly?”

“Be tranquil,” replied Cinq-Mars, but with irony in his tone. “’Tis not, indeed, you who are guilty; but I—­I alone; not toward you, but for you.”

“Have you done wrong, then?  Have you ordered the death of any one?  Oh, no, I am sure you have not, you are so good!”

“What!” said Cinq-Mars, “are you as nothing in my designs?  Did I misconstrue your thoughts when you looked at me in the Queen’s boudoir?  Can I no longer read in your eyes?  Was the fire which animated them that of a love for Richelieu?  That admiration which you promised to him who should dare to say all to the King, where is it?  Is it all a falsehood?”

Marie burst into tears.

“You still speak to me with bitterness,” she said; “I have not deserved it.  Do you suppose, because I speak not of this fearful conspiracy, that I have forgotten it?  Do you not see me miserable at the thought?  Must you see my tears?  Behold them; I shed enough in secret.  Henri, believe that if I have avoided this terrible subject in our last interviews, it is from the fear of learning too much.  Have I any other thought that that of your dangers?  Do I not know that it is for me you incur them?  Alas! if you fight for me, have I not also to sustain attacks no less cruel?  Happier than I, you have only to combat hatred, while I struggle against friendship.  The Cardinal will oppose to you men and weapons; but the Queen, the gentle Anne of Austria, employs only tender advice, caresses, sometimes tears.”