'In the meantime we will go back to our books, and serve God and the King in small things if not in great.

Come, father, this is no longer a place for us.

VANITAS VANITATUM OMNIA VANITAS! We will retire.' And as solemnly as we had come we marched back through the first and second and third doors until we stood again in the silence of the Cardinal's chamber--he and I and the velvet-footed man in black.

For a while Richelieu seemed to forget me.

He stood brooding on the hearth, his eyes on a small fire, which burned there though the weather was warm.