What he had professed in cold deliberation had become in some sense a fact.

She had roused in him an eager passion.

He might even dare, when De la Foret was gone, to confess his own action in the matter to the Queen, once she was again within his influence.

She had forgiven him more than that in the past, when he had made his own mad devotion to herself excuse for his rashness or misconduct.
He waited opportunity, he arranged all details carefully, he secured the passive agents of his purpose; and when the right day came he acted.
About ten o'clock one night, a half-hour before the closing of the palace gates, when no one could go in or go out save by permit of the Lord Chamberlain, a footman from a surgeon of the palace came to Angele, bearing a note which read: "Your friend is very ill, and asks for you.

Come hither alone; and now, if you would come at all." Her father was confined to bed with some ailment of the hour, and asleep--it were no good to awaken him.