She heard, too, mingled together in her deafened ears, words of menace and words of fond affection; she seemed raised out of her first existence as though it were upon the wings of a mighty tempest, and in the dim horizon of the path along which her delirium hurried her, she saw the stone which covered her tomb upraised, and the dark and appalling interior of eternal night revealed to her distracted gaze.

But the horror of the dream which had possessed her senses soon faded away, and she was again restored to the habitual resignation of her character.

A ray of hope penetrated her heart, as a ray of sunlight streams into the dungeon of some unhappy captive.

Her mind reverted to the journey from Fontainebleau; she saw the king riding beside her carriage, telling her that he loved her, asking for her love in return, requiring her to swear, and himself swearing too, that never should an evening pass by, if ever a misunderstanding were to arise between them, without a visit, a letter, a sign of some kind, being sent, to replace the troubled anxiety of the evening by the calm repose of the night.

It was the king who had suggested that, who had imposed a promise upon her, who had himself sworn it also.