TEN YEARS LATER. 447 delight at it, well, in that case, the king will be humiliated before the whole court; and what a delightful story it will be, too, for him to whom I am really attached, a part of my dowry for my husband, to have the adventure to relate of" the king who was so amusingly deceived by a young girl." "Sire!" exclaimed La Valliere, her mind bewildered, almost wandering, indeed, "not another word, I implore you; you do not see that you are killing me?" "A jest, nothing but a jest," murmured the king, who, however, began to be somewhat affected. La Valliere fell upon her knees, and that so violently that their sound could be heard upon the hard floor. "Sire," she said, "I prefer shame to disloyalty." "What do you mean?" inquired the king, without mov- ing a step to raise the young girl from her knees. "Sire, when 1 shall have sacrificed my honor and my reason both to you, you will perhaps believe in my loyalty. The tale which was related to you in madame's apartments, and by madame herself, is utterly false; and that which I said beneath the great oak " "Well?" "That only is the truth." "What!" exclaimed the king. "Sire," exclaimed La Valliere, hurried away by the violence of her emotions, "were I to die of shame on the very spot where my knees are fiixed, I would repeat it until my latest breath; I said that I loved you, and it is true; I do love you." "You!" "I have loved you, sire, from the very day I first saw you, from the moment when at Blois, where I was pining away my existence, your royal looks, full of li^ht and life, were first bent upon me. I love you still, sire; it is a crime of high treason, I know, that a poor girl like myself should love her sovereign, and should presume to tell him so. Punish rae for my audacity, despise me for my shameless immodesty, but do not ever say, do not ever think, that I have jested with or deceived you. I belong to a family whose loyalty has been proved, sire, and I, too, love my king." Suddenly her strength, voice, and respiration ceased, and she fell forward, like the flower Virgil alludes to, which the scythe of the reaper touched as it passed over. The king, at these words, at this vehement entreaty, no longer retained either ill-will or doubt in his mind; his whole heart seemed to expand at the glowing breath of an affec-
