A LAST WORD
The roses are blooming about me in this little garden in Normandy, for it is June, and six months have gone since that memorable audience with the regent,—six months that have passed like a dream. I have been busy looking over my estate—how strangely it sounds, even yet, to say “my estate!”—getting acquainted with my people and trying to make them love me.
I receive a letter from Paris now and then, and from these I learn the news. Madame du Maine is still at Dijon, and the other conspirators are also still in prison, but the regent is not vindictive, and I believe will soon release them. To the Bretons he was not so merciful, and more than one went to the gibbet. But the kingdom is at peace, and we hear no more of plots against it.
I close my eyes, and see again the lovely face of Charlotte d’Orleans as I saw it last and as I love best to remember it, and I pray that it may yet be my good fortune to be of service to her. Stranger things have happened, and, who knows, perhaps some day the chance will come.
And Richelieu? Ah, Richelieu is coming next week to be my guest, and how I shall delight to take him by the hand, to show him over my estate, to talk with him again!
As I lay down my pen I hear a stealthy step upon the walk behind me, and two soft hands are clasped upon my eyes.
“Guess who it is,” cries a merry voice.
“I do not need to guess, my love,” I answer. “My heart tells me too surely,” and I draw my wife’s laughing face down to mine and kiss her fondly.