"
He looked up in doubt, and saw only confusion; attributed it
perhaps to the presence of that third party to which himself he
had been so indifferent. He kissed the coverlet again, stumbled
to his feet, and reached the door. Thence he sent her a flaming
glance of his bold eyes, and hand on heart--
"Adieu, madame!" said he in tragic tones, and so departed.
Madame de Lannoi was discreet, and related at the time nothing of
what had passed at that interview. But that the interview itself
had taken place under such conditions was enough to set the
tongue of gossip wagging. An echo of it reached the King,
together with the story of that other business in the garden, and
he was glad to know that the Duke of Buckingham was back in
London. Richelieu, to vent his own malice against the Queen,
sought to feed the King's suspicions.
"Why did she cry out, sire?" he will have asked. "What did M. de
Buckingham do to make her cry out?"
"I don't know. But whatever it was, she was no party to it since
she did cry out."
Richelieu did not pursue the matter just then. But neither did he
abandon it. He had his agents in London and elsewhere, and he
desired of them a close report upon the Duke of Buckingham's
movements, and the fullest particulars of his private life.
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