with a long tassel, a dark, gold-embroidered velvet jacket sitting close to his body, and a white kilt over his legs, bare except for buskins stiff with gold.  The poor little fellow looked pale in spite of his tawny hue, his enormous black eyes were heavy and weary, and he seemed to be trying to keep aloof from the small brazen vessel formed by the coils of two serpents that held the inky liquid of which Philip had spoken.

No doubt of the veritable nature of the charm crossed Diane; her doubt was of its lawfulness, her dread of the supernatural region she was invading.  She hesitated before she ventured on her first question, and started as the Italian first spoke,—­’What would the Eccelentissima?  Ladies often hesitate to speak the question nearest their hearts.  Yet is it ever the same.  But the lady must be pleased to form it herself in words, or the lad will not see her vision.’

‘Where, then, is my brother?’ said Diane, still reluctant to come direct to the point.

The boy gazed intently into the black pool, his great eyes dilating till they seemed like black wells, and after a long time, that Diane could have counted by the throbs of her heart, he began to close his fingers, perform the action over the other arm of one playing on the lute, throw his head back, close his eyes, and appear to be singing a lullaby.  Then he spoke a few words to his master quickly.

‘He see,’ said Ercole, ’a gentleman touching the lute, seated in a bedroom, where lies, on a rich pillow, another gentleman,’—­and as the boy stroked his face, and pointed to his hands—­’wearing a mask and gloves.  It is, he says, in my own land, in Italy,’ and as the boy made the action of rowing, ‘in the territory of Venice.’

‘It is well,’ said Madame de Selinville, who knew that nothing was more probable than that her brother should be playing the King to his sleep in the medicated mask and gloves that cherished the royal complexion, and, moreover, that Henry was lingering to take his pastime in Italy to the great inconvenience of his kingdom.

Her next question came nearer her heat—­’You saw the gentleman with a scar.  Will he leave this castle?’

The boy gazed, then made gestures of throwing his arms wide, and of passing out; and as he added his few words, the master explained:  ’He sees the gentleman leaving the castle, through open gate, in full day, on horseback; and—­and it is Madame who is with them,’ he added, as the lad pointed decidedly to her, ’it is Madame who opens their prison.’

Diane’s face lighted with gladness for a moment; then she said, faltering (most women of her day would not have been even thus reserved), ‘Then I shall marry again?’

The boy gazed and knitted his brow; then, without any pantomime, looked up and spoke.  ’The Eccellentissima shall be a bride once more, he says,’ explained the man, ’but after a sort he cannot understand.  It is exhausting, lady, thus to gaze into the invisible future; the boy becomes confused and exhausted ere long.’