‘You will never, never let a word of blame pass against him,’ cried Philippe earnestly.  ’It is well that one of our people should have seen how it really is with him.  All I regret is that Maitre Rene thrust himself in and saw you.

‘Who?’ said Berenger, who had been too much engrossed to perceive any one.

’Maitre Rene of Milan, the Queen-mother’s perfume.  He came with some plea of bringing a pouncet-box from her, but I wager it was as a spy.  I was doing my best to walk him gently off, when the Queen’s cry called me, and he must needs come in after me.

‘I saw him not,’ said Berenger; ’perhaps he marked not me in the confusion.

‘I fear,’ said Pare gravely, ’he was more likely to have his senses about him than you.  M. le Baron; these bleedings of the King’s are not so new to us familiars to the palace.  The best thing now to be done is to have you to the carriage, if you can move.

Berenger, now quite recovered, stood up, and gave his warm thanks to the old nurse for her kindness to him.

‘Ah! sir,’ she said, ’you are one of us.  Pray, pray that God will have mercy on my poor child!  He has the truth in his heart.  Pray that it may save him at the last.

Ambroise, knowing that she would never cease speaking while there was any one to hear her, almost dragged Berenger out at the little secret door, conveyed him safely down the stairs, and placed him again in the carriage.  Neither spoke till the surgeon said, ’You have seen a sad sight, Monsieur le Baron:  I need not bid you be discreet.

‘There are some things that go too deep for speech,’ sighed the almost English Berenger; then, after a pause, ’Is there no hope for him?  Is he indeed dying?

’Without a miracle, he cannot live a month.  He is as truly slain by the St. Bartholomew as ever its martyrs were,’ said Pare, moved out of his usual cautious reserve towards one who had seen so much and felt so truly.  ’I tell you, sir, that his mother hath as truly slain her sons, as if she had sent Rene there to them with his drugs.  According as they have consciences and hearts, so they pine and perish under her rule.

Berenger shuddered, and almost sobbed, ’And hath he no better hope, no comforter?’ he asked.

’None save good old Flipote.  As you heard, the Queen-mother will not suffer his own Church to speak to him in her true voice.  No confessor but one chosen by the Cardinal of Lorraine may come near him; and with him all is mere ceremony.  But if at the last he opens his ear and heart to take in the true hope of salvation, it will be from the voice of poor old Philippe.

And so it was!  It was Philippe, who heard him in the night sobbing over the piteous words, ‘My God, what horrors, what blood!’ and, as she took from his tear-drenched handkerchief, spoke to him of the Blood that speakth better things than the blood of Abel; and it was she who, in the final agony, heard and treasured these last words, ’If the Lord Jesus will indeed receive me into the company of the blest!’ Surely, never was repentance deeper than that of Charles IX.—­and these, his parting words, were such as to inspire the trust that it was not remorse.