"What means all this?" exclaimed Cinq Mars;--"explain Fontrailles! Sire, shall we follow yon impostor?"
But Louis's eyes were fixed with a strained gaze upon the scroll, which he held in his hand, and which seemed to absorb every faculty of his soul. At length he raised them, mounted his horse in silence, and still holding the parchment tight in his hand, rode on, exclaiming, "To Chantilly."
Showing how the green-eyed monster got hold of a young lady's heart, and what he did with it.
Who is there that has not dreamed and had their dream broken? Who is there that has not sighed to see spring flowers blighted, or summer sunshine yield to wintry clouds; or bright hopes change to dark sorrows, and gay joys pass away like sudden meteors, that blaze for one splendid moment, and then drop powerless into the dark bosom of the night?
If memory, instead of softening all the traces, gave us back the original lines of life in their native harshness, who could live on to old age? for the catalogue of broken hopes, and disappointed wishes, and pleasures snatched from us never to return, would be more than any human mind could bear. It would harden the heart to marble, or break it in its youth. It is happy too, that in early years our mind has greater power of resistance, for the novelty of sorrow gives it a double sting.
The fatigues of her journey had long worn off, and left Pauline de Beaumont all the glow of wild youthful beauty, which had adorned her in her native hills. Her cheek had recovered its fine soft blush in all its warmth, and her eyes all their dark brilliancy. But the cheerful gaiety which had distinguished her, the light buoyancy of spirit, that seemed destined to rise above all the sorrows of the world, had not come back with the rose of her cheek, or the lustre of her eye. She loved to be alone, and instead of regretting the gloom and stillness which prevailed in the court of Anne of Austria, she often seemed to find its gaiety too much for her, and would retire to the suite of apartments appropriated to her mother and herself, to enjoy the solitude of her own thoughts.
At first, Madame de Beaumont fancied that the melancholy of her daughter was caused by the sudden change from many loved scenes, endeared by all the remembrances of infancy, to others in which, as yet, she had acquired no interest. But as a second week followed the first, after their arrival at St. Germain's, and the same depression of spirits still continued, the Marchioness began to fear that Pauline had some more serious cause of sorrow; and her mind reverted to the suspicions of De Blenau's constancy, which she had been the first to excite in her daughter's bosom.