Eleven days had passed since the sudden termination of the fatal tournament, and Henri of France still lay speechless and insensible as he had fallen in the lists, when, from the insecure fastening of his helmet, it had given way before the lance of Montgomeri, and caused him to receive the full force of the blow on his eyebrow, thence fatally injuring the brain. Still life was not extinct, and, though against all reason, hopes were still entertained by many for his eventual recovery. In one of the apartments of the Louvre, forming the suite of the queen dauphine, sat the unfortunate Comte de Montgomeri and his betrothed bride. Sometimes sanguine that Henri would, nay, must recover; at others plunged in the depth of despair—had been the alternate moods of the count during these eleven days. His friends conjured him to lose no time in retiring from France, at least for a time; and Idalie herself, though she shrunk from the idea of parting, with an indefinable feeling of foreboding dread, yet so trembled for his safety if he remained, as to add her solicitations to those of others. Still the count lingered. The very thought of his having been the ill-fated hand to give the death-blow to the monarch he revered, and the friend he loved, was too horrible to be realized. He could not believe that such would be; yet so dark was his despair, so agonizing his self-accusations, that even his interviews with Idalie had lost their soothing sweetness, and he did but deplore that her pure love had been given to one so darkly fated as himself.

It was after one of these bursts of misery that the Comte de Montemar, who had been engaged with papers at the further end of the apartment, approached and sought to comfort him by an appeal to those holier feelings, which Montgomeri possessed in a much higher degree than most of his countrymen.

“It is not well, my friend,” De Montemar said, “to poison thus the brief moments we may yet pass together. Remember, thou wert no willing agent of that higher power, by whose mandate alone it was that our monarch fell. All may seem dark, yet even out of darkness He brought forth light—out of a very chaos the most unwavering order; and does He not do so still? Abide by the advice of those who urge thee to quit France till order is restored, and our gracious sovereign’s last words remembered and acted upon. Italian blood is hot and eager to avenge; but fear not, we shall meet again in happier days, and, oh, embitter not thus the few moments still left my poor child!”

Softened and subdued more than he had been yet, Montgomeri folded his arm round the weeping Idalie, kissed the tears from her pale cheek, conjured her forgiveness, and promised to battle with the despondency that almost crushed him.

“And wilt thou indeed do this?” she rejoined, imploringly. “Oh, bless thee for such promise! Yet I fear thee, Montgomeri. And when apart from me, and these troubled thoughts regain ascendency, thou wilt rush on danger, on death, to escape them. Think, then, dearest, that it is not your own life alone which you risk; that one is bound up in it which cannot rest alone. Will the ivy blossom and smile when the oak has fallen? And as the oak is to the lowly yet clinging ivy, so art thou to me.”

Folding her still closer, Montgomeri in his turn sought to reassure and soothe, but with less success than usual. Every look and tone of Idalie betrayed that heavy weight which had increased with each day that brought the hour of parting nearer. Breathed to none, and battled with as it had been, still it seemed to hold every faculty chained, and at length caused her head to sink on the bosom of De Lorges with such a burst of irrepressible anguish as to excite his alarm, and tenderly he conjured her to reveal its cause.

“I know it is a weakness, a folly, Gabriel, unworthy of the woman whom thou lovest; but scorn it not, upbraid it not, bid it go from me! Is there not woe enough in parting, that before the hope of meeting ever rises a dim and shapeless darkness impos............