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"Far from it, sire. Your majesty is all goodness; and that God, to whom the secrets of all men's hearts are known, knows well how truly and affectionately I love and honour my king and brother."

"Yet," said Charles, "methinks 'tis not usual to fly from those we love, and who love us."

"Your majesty is right in so believing; but 'twas not from those I loved I sought to escape, but from such as hated me, and desired my ruin. Am I permitted to speak openly? "You are-proceed."

"The persons whose animosity I dreaded and wished to fly from were M. d'Alençon and the queen-mother."

"As for M. d'Alençon, I will not say you are wrong; but the queen-mother loads you with attentions."

"And 'tis precisely for that reason I mistrust her; and a very good thing it is I was on my guard."

"Against the queen-mother?"

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Ay, the queen-mother, or those who are about her. Now, will your majesty tell me as candidly as I have answered the questions put to me, whether my life is of any value in your eyes?"

"I should be miserable if any harm were to befal you."

“Well, then, I can assure your majesty you have twice very narrowly escaped being made miserable on my account. Twice has Providence interposed in my behalf, Certainly, upon one occasion Providence thought fit to assume the features of your majesty."

"And who was your preserver upon the other occasion?" "A very unlikely person to be selected as a providential agent for good: no other than René."

"And what did he for you?"

"He saved me from poison."

"You have all the luck, Harry!" murmured poor Charles, faintly smiling; but the feeble attempt was quickly dispelled by the sharp spasmodic contraction of returning suffering.

The king wiped his brow, and signed to Henry to proceed. "Well, sire," said Henry, "have I spoken out as boldly as you desired? Is there anything else you are desirous of questioning me upon?"

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'Harry, you are a good and a faithful fellow. Tell me this

-do you apprehend any further attempts on your life or honour on the part of your enemies?"

"I can but assure you, that when evening comes, I am always surprised to find myself still in existence."

"It is because they see I love you, they are thus bitter: but make yourself quite easy. They shall meet with their just reward; meanwhile you are free."

"To quit Paris?" asked Henry.

"No, no! You are well aware I cannot possibly do without you. Mille noms d'un diable! I must have some one to love me, surely."

"Then if your majesty prefers keeping me with you, at least grant me one favour."

"What is that?"

"Not to entertain me as a friend, but to detain me as a prisoner."

"A prisoner, Harry!"

"Nay, does not your majesty see plainly enough that it is your friendship that brings all my troubles and disasters on

me?"

"And you would prefer my hatred?"

"I would only desire your feigned dislike, sire. An outward manifestation of displeasure on your part will save me from any further persecution from those who will esteem me of too little consequence to merit their hostility, directly they believe you have disgraced and dismissed me from favourbut your majesty is still suffering from your recent attack; I can perceive the efforts you are making to conceal it. Permit me to summon the necessary aid."

"I have sent for maître Ambroise Paré.”

"Then I shall retire more satisfied."

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Upon my soul," said the king, "I verily believe you are the only person in the world who really loves me!"

"Is such your opinion, sire?"

"It is, on the word of a gentleman."

"Then I pray you to commend me to the strict keeping of M. de Nancey, as a man your extreme anger may doom to death ere a month is past. By that means you will have me to love you for many years."

"M. de Nancey!" cried Charles. The captain of the

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guards entered.

"M. de Nancey," said Charles, "I here commit to your keeping the most guilty man in my kingdom; you will answer for him with your life.”

The officer bowed low; and with a well-feigned air of consternation, Henry followed his self-solicited keeper from the apartment.

CHAPTER LIII.

ACTEON.

CHARLES was alone, and much astonished not to have seen one or other of his faithful attendants—his nurse Madeleine and his greyhound Actæon.

"Nurse has gone to sing her psalms with some huguenot of her acquaintance," he said to himself; "and Actæon is still angry with me for the blow I gave him with my whip this morning."

Charles then took a wax candle, and went into the nurse's apartment: she was not there, and he passed on into his armoury; but as he went forward, one of those agonies he had already experienced, and which came on him suddenly, seized him. He suffered as if his entrails were perforated with a hot iron; an unquenchable thirst consumed him, and seeing a cup of milk on the table, he swallowed it at a draught, and then felt somewhat easier, and entered the armoury.

To his great astonishment, Actæon did not come to meet him-had he been shut up? In that case, he would have known that his master had returned from hunting, and howled to rejoin him.

Charles called-whistled-the animal did not appear.

He advanced four paces, and as the light of the wax candle threw its beams to the angle of the cabinet, he saw, in the torner, a large mass extended on the floor.

"Halo! Actæon, halo!" said Charles, whistling again.

The dog never stirred; Charles hastened forward, and touched him: the poor brute was stiff and cold. From his throat, contracted by pain, several drops of humour had fallen,

mingled with a roamy and bloody slaver. The dog had found in the cabinet an old cap of his master's, and had died with his head resting on something that represented a friend.

At this spectacle, which made him forget his own sufferings and restored him to all his energy, rage boiled in Charles's veins: he would have cried out, but, encompassed in their greatness as they are, kings are not free to yield to that first impulse which every man turns to the profit of his passion or his defence: Charles reflected that there might be some treason here, and was silent.

Then he knelt before his dog, and examined the dead carcass with an experienced eye. The eye was glassy, the tongue red and covered with pustules; it was a strange disease, and made Charles shudder.

The king put on his gloves, opened the livid lips of the dog to examine the teeth, and remarked, in the interstices, some white-looking fragments clinging about the points of his sharp teeth.

He took these fragments out, and at once recognised that they were paper; near where the paper was, the inflammation was more violent, the gums more swollen, and the skin as if eaten by vitriol.

On the carpet

Charles looked around him attentively. were lying several pieces of paper similar to that which he had already recognised in the dog's throat; one of the bits, larger than the other, presented the marks of an engraving on wood.

Charles's hair stood erect on his head; he recognised a fragment of the engraving, which represented a gentleman hawking, and it was that which Acteon had torn out of the book.

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"Ah," said he, turning pale, "the book was poisoned!" Then suddenly calling up his recollections-" Mille demons! I touched every page with my finger, and at every page raised my finger to my lips to moisten it. These faintingsthese agonies-these vomitings!-I am a dead man!"

Charles remained for an instant motionless under the weight of this frightful idea; then raising himself with a hoarse groan, he went hastily towards the door.

"Let some one go instantly, and with all despatch," he

cried, "to maître René, and bring him here in ten minutes. If maître Ambroise Paré arrives, desire him to wait."

A guard went instantly to obey the king's commands.

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Ah," muttered Charles, "if I put everybody to the torture, I will learn who gave this book to Harry!" and with the perspiration on his brow, his hands clenched, his breast heaving, Charles remained with his eyes fixed on the body of his dead dog.

Ten minutes afterwards, the Florentine rapped timidly at the door.

"Enter!" said Charles.

The perfumer appeared, and Charles went up towards him with an imperious air and compressed lip.

"Your majesty desired to see me," said René, trembling. "Yes; you are a skilful chemist, are you not?”

"Sire

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"And know all that the most skilful doctors know?"

"Your majesty is pleased to flatter me."

"No, my mother tells me so; and, besides, I have confidence in you, and had rather consult you than any one else. Look!" he continued, pointing to the carcass of the dead dog; "I beg you to look at that animal's mouth, and tell me of what death he has died."

Whilst René, with a wax-candle in his hand, was stooping down to the ground, as much to hide his emotion as to obey the king, Charles, standing up, with his eyes fixed on him, awaited with a feverish expectation, easily to be imagined, the reply, which would be his sentence of death or his assurance of safety.

René drew a kind of scalpel from his pocket, opened it, and, with the point, detached from the dog's throat the morsels of paper adhering to the gums, looking long and attentively to the humour and blood which distilled from each wound. "Sire," he said, in a tremulous voice, "here are very sad symptoms."

Charles felt an icy shudder run through his veins, and to his very heart.

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"Yes," he exclaimed, "the dog has been poisoned, has he not?"

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