Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
She dropped her lorgnon, and folding her aristocratic hands upon her bosom, she once more assumed the grand manner pertaining to Versailles, and Hector having swallowed an uncomfortable lump in his throat, threw open the huge, folding doors and announced in a stentorian voice: "Madame la Duchesse douairière d'Agen!"
Did he break into my lodgings last night? What! I continued, staggering back as I read the confirmation of my fears in his face. 'He did? M. d'Agen, who had risen also, pressed my hand with convulsive energy. Gazing into my face, he held me a moment thus embraced, His manner a strange mixture of fierceness and emotion. 'Alas, yes, he answered, 'he did, and took away those whom he found there!
I went at once and broke the matter off, threatening to shoot the fellow if he was not under cover before I counted ten. But the scared, sultry faces he left behind him told me that the mischief was done, and I could think of no better remedy for it than to give M. d'Agen a hint, and station him at the outer gate with his pistols ready.
As it was, in my longing at once to reproach her for her wickedness and to thank her for her timely repentance, I found no words; but I turned away in silence and went out with a full heart. Outside the door, standing in the dimness of the landing, I found M. d'Agen. At any other time I should have been the first to ask him why he had left the post which I had assigned to him.
This ghastly news had scared my company to such a degree that they had gone as far from the house as the level ground permitted, and there lighted a fire, round which they were going to pass the night. Fanchette had taken up her quarters in the stable, and the equerry announced that he had kept a shed full of sweet, hay for M. d'Agen and myself.
But about seven next morning one of the Marquis's servants, despatched by M. d'Agen, burst in upon us with the news which was no news from the moment his hurried footstep sounded on the stairs that Father Antoine had been set upon and killed the previous evening!
Oh, if only I could do something for France and for the King I would count myself the happiest woman on God's earth." Now she was a woman transformed. She seemed taller and stronger. Her girlishness, too, had vanished. Her cheeks burned, her eyes glowed, her breath came and went rapidly through her quivering nostrils. Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen looked down on her niece with naive admiration.
After that half a minute sufficed to bring M. d'Agen flying to my side, when nothing, as I had expected, would do but I must dismount; where I was and share his lodging.
I cried out on him for a maudlin fool, and M. d'Agen swore impatiently; but for all that, and despite the contempt I strove to exhibit, I felt a sudden chill at my heart as I recognised in the valley below the same blue haze which had attended us through yesterday's ride, and left us only at nightfall.
'Now my nephew, M. d'Agen, is without, and will tell your Majesty that he was with this gentleman at his lodgings from about an hour before sunset last evening until a full hour after. Consequently, M. de Marsac can hardly be the assassin, and M. le Marechal must look elsewhere if he wants vengeance. 'Justice, sir, not vengeance. Marshal Retz said with a dark glance.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking