"Truly its ruin cannot hurt you much since you care for it so little. Could I leave it, and all that belongs to it, I would do so, for I have learned hard lessons in it."
"You have reached your ambition," she said.
"Have I? I believed in a woman's trust, and I have awakened from a dream. I will trouble you no more. The times demand the Duke; Roger Herrick ceases to exist. The Duke lives to hold Montvilliers against her enemies. Roger Herrick was a poor fool who loved and trusted you, mademoiselle."
He turned, and left her, the door closing heavily behind him. For a moment Christine stood where she was, angry, defiant, then she sank into a chair, and sobbed. Wounded pride, disappointment, loneliness, and love were in her tears.
"If he were only Roger Herrick and no Duke," she said, "I could have loved, I would have done all that he— But he shall suffer. I have power, and right is on my side. He has defied the law, why should not I? The people would make me Duchess. Why should I not wear the crown?"
And then she rose quickly, stepping back into the shadows, as the door opened again. She thought Herrick was returning, and she would not have him see her tears. It was not Herrick, it was Father Bertrand.
"Did your master send you to me?" she asked.
"Mademoiselle, I have no masters but the Church and my conscience."
She laughed, dashing the last tears from her eyes.
"The Duke you have helped to make should reward you well."