Of My Return to Paris

Scant cause is there for me to tarry over the details of my return to Paris. A sad enough journey was it; as sad for my poor Michelot as for myself, since he rode with one so dejected as I.

Things had gone ill, and I feared that when the Cardinal heard the story things would go worse, for Mazarin was never a tolerant man, nor one to be led by the gospel of mercy and forgiveness. For myself I foresaw the rope--possibly even the wheel; and a hundred times a day I dubbed myself a fool for obeying the voice of honour with such punctiliousness when so grim a reward awaited me. What mood was on me--me, Gaston de Luynes, whose honour had been long since besmirched and tattered until no outward semblance of honour was left?

But swift in the footsteps of that question would come the answer--Yvonne. Ay, truly enough, it was because in my heart I had dared to hold a sentiment of love for her, the purest--nay, the only pure--thing my heart had held for many a year, that I would set nothing vile to keep company with that sentiment; that until my sun should set--and already it dropped swiftly towards life's horizon--my actions should be the actions of such a man as might win Yvonne's affections.

But let that be. This idle restrospective mood can interest you but little; nor can you profit from it, unless, indeed, it be by noting how holy and cleansing to the heart of man is the love--albeit unrequited--that he bears a good woman.