eyes your innocence of the hideous crime. We are alone with God: in
mercy tell me, are you innocent or guilty?"

As he raised his face to hers, the countess saw there such powerful
love struggling with his anguish, that her heart was touched, and
the angry words she had meditated died upon her lips.

"These are cruel doubts wherewith to assail your mother, Eugene,"
said she, after a pause. "Follow me, and in the presence of your
forefathers you shall he answered."

With a lofty bend of the head, she left the room, followed by her
stricken child. They crossed a spacious hall, and traversed one
after another the apartments of state which were thrown open to
guests on occasions of great ceremony, and led to the grand hall of
reception. At the farther end of this hall, under a canopy of purple
velvet, surmounted by a ducal crown, were the two thrones which, on
the days of these state receptions, the Count and Countess de
Soissons were privileged to occupy in presence of their guests,
provided his majesty were not of the number. This right they held by
virtue of their connection with the royal house of France, and their
close relationship to the Duke of Savoy. At the time of the marriage
of his niece with the Count de Soissons, Cardinal Mazarin had
obtained from Louis XIV. an acknowledgment of her husband as a
prince of the blood, and, by virtue of this acknowledgment, his
right to attend without invitation all court festivities, to appear
at the public and private levees of the king, and in his own palace
to sit upon a throne.

On either side of the throne-room of the Hotel de Soissons were