“In an hour you shall be obeyed.”

“You see the address,” said the queen, speaking so low that Mme. Bonacieux could hardly hear what she said, “To my Lord Duke of Buckingham, London.”

“The letter shall be given to himself.”

“Generous girl!” cried Anne of Austria.

Mme. Bonacieux kissed the hands of the queen, concealed the paper in the bosom of her dress, and disappeared with the lightness of a bird.

Ten minutes afterward she was at home. As she told the queen, she had not seen her husband since his liberation; she was ignorant of the change that had taken place in him with respect to the cardinal — a change which had