Still, Mademoiselle had her betrothed, and in his charge had sat herself down to wait, nothing loth, in the great gallery, where all was bustle and gaiety and entertainment.

For this, the seventh day of the fetes, held to celebrate the marriage of the King of Navarre and Charles's sister--a marriage which was to reconcile the two factions of the Huguenots and the Catholics, so long at war--saw the Louvre as gay, as full, and as lively as the first of the fete days had found it; and in the humours of the throng, in the ceaseless passage of masks and maids of honour, guards and bishops, Swiss in the black, white, and green of Anjou, and Huguenot nobles in more sombre habits, the country-bred girl had found recreation and to spare.

Until gradually the evening had worn away and she had begun to feel nervous; and M.de Tignonville, her betrothed, placing her in the embrasure of a window, had gone to seek Madame.
She had waited for a time without much misgiving; expecting each moment to see him return.

He would be back before she could count a hundred; he would be back before she could number the leagues that separated her from her beloved province, and the home by the Biscay Sea, to which even in that brilliant scene her thoughts turned fondly.

But the minutes had passed, and passed, and he had not returned.