two
o’clock
Monceaux was a castle belonging to the Queen Dowager at no great distance from Montpipeau , but there had been no intention of leaving Paris before the wedding , which was fixed for the seventeenth of August , and the bridegroom was daily expected . She asked who was the party at Monceaux , and was told that Madame de Nemours had gone thither the evening before , with her son , M. de Guise , to make ready ; and that Monsieur was escorting thither his two sisters , Madame de Lorraine and Madame Marguerite . The Queen-mother had set out before them very early in the morning . ` You must have made great speed , ' said Elisabeth ; ` it is scarcely two o'clock . ' ` Truly we did , Madame ; two of our horses even died upon the road ; but the Queen was anxious to find the King ere he should set off on one of his long chases . ' Diane , at every spare moment , kept her eyes interrogatively fixed on her cousin , and evidently expected that the taciturn Queen , to whom a long conversation , in any language but Spanish , was always a grievance , would soon dismiss them both ; and Eustacie did not know whether to be thankful or impatient , as Elisabeth , with tardy , hesitating , mentally-translated speech , inquired into every circumstance of the death of the poor horses , and then into all the court gossip , which she was currently supposed neither to hear nor understand ; and then bethought herself that this good Mademoiselle de Ribaumont could teach her that embroidery stitch she had so long wished to learn . Taking her arm , she entered the hall , and produced her work , so as effectually to prevent any communication between the cousins ; Eustacie , meanwhile her heart clinging to her friend , felt her eyes filling with tears at the thoughts of how unkind her morrow 's flight would seem without one word of farewell or of confidence , and was already devising tokens of tenderness to be left behind for Diane 's consolation , when the door of the cabinet opened , and Catherine sailed down the stairs , with her peculiar gliding step and sweep of dignity .