The Abbe gave a start of horror which half opened the door of the
confessional.

"O father, fear nothing," said Henri d'Effiat; "your pupil will never
strike such blows. Those I prepare will be heard from afar, and the
broad day will light them up; but there remains a duty--a sacred duty--
for me to fulfil. Behold your son sacrifice himself before you! Alas!
I have not lived long in the sight of happiness, and I am about, perhaps,
to destroy it by your hand, that consecrated it."

As he spoke, he opened the light grating which separated him from his old
tutor; the latter, still observing an extraordinary silence, passed his
hood over his forehead.

"Restore this nuptial ring to the Duchesse de Mantua," said Cinq-Mars,
in a tone less firm; "I can not keep it unless she give it me a second
time, for I am not the same whom she promised to espouse."

The priest hastily seized the ring, and passed it through the opposite
grating; this mark of indifference astonished Cinq-Mars.

"What! Father," he said, "are you also changed?"

Marie wept no longer; but, raising her angelic voice, which awakened a
faint echo along the aisles of the church, as the softest sigh of the
organ, she said, returning the ring to Cinq-Mars:

"O dearest, be not angry! I comprehend you not. Can we break asunder
what God has just united, and can I leave you, when I know you are