There is the Queen going. Diane, one loving word.'

'Silly child, you shall have plenty another time,' said Diane, breaking
away. 'Follow thy Queen now!'

Catherine, who sat between her daughters Claude and Marguerite, looked
pre-occupied, and summarily dismissed her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth,
whom Eustacie was obliged to follow to her own state-room. There all the
forms of the COUCHER were tediously gone through; every pin had its own
ceremony, and even when her Majesty was safely deposited under her blue
satin coverlet the ladies still stood round till she felt disposed to
fall asleep. Elisabeth was both a sleepy and a considerate person, so
that this was not so protracted a vigil as was sometimes exacted by the
more wakeful princesses; but Eustacie could not escape from it till it
was already almost midnight, the period for her tryst.

Her heart was very full. It was not the usual flutter and terror of an
eloping girl. Eustacie was a fearless little being, and her conscience
had no alarms; her affections were wholly with Berenger, and her
transient glimpses of him had been as of something come out of a region
higher, tenderer, stronger, purer, more trustworthy than that where she
had dwelt. She was proud of belonging to him. She had felt upheld by the
consciousness through years of waiting, and now he more than realized
her hopes, and she could have wept for exulting joy. Yet it was a
strange, stealthy break with all she had to leave behind. The light
to which he belonged seemed strange, chill, dazzling light, and she
shivered at the thought of it, as if the new world, new ideas, and new
requirements could only be endured with him to shield her and help her
on. And withal, there seemed to her a shudder over the whole place on
that night. The King's eyes looked wild and startled, the Queen-mother's
calm was strained, the Duchess of Lorraine was evidently in a state of
strong nervous excitement; there were strange sounds, strange people
moving about, a weight on everything, as if they were under the shadow
of a