He rose from his knees and stood staring at me. ‘They are gone!’ he said stupidly. ‘Gone?’ I exclaimed. ‘Impossible! When? Whither?’ ‘Half an hour ago. Whither--I do not know.’ Confounded and amazed, I glared at him between fear and rage. ‘You do not know?’ I cried. ‘They are gone, and you do not know?’ He turned suddenly on me and gripped my arm. ‘No, I do not know! I do not know!’ he cried, with a complete change of manner and in a tone of fierce excitement. ‘Only, may the fiend go with them! But I do know this. I know this, M. de Marsac, with whom they went, these friends of yours! A fop came, a dolt, a fine spark, and gave them fine words and fine speeches and a gold token, and, hey presto! they went, and forgot you!’ ‘What!’ I cried, beginning to understand, and snatching fiercely at the one clue in his speech. ‘A gold token? They have been decoyed away then! There is no time to be lost. I must follow.’ ‘No, for that is not all!’ he replied, interrupting me sternly, while his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his eyes flashed as they looked into mine. ‘You have not heard all. They have gone with one who called you an impostor, and a thief, and a beggar, and that to your mother’s face--and killed her! Killed her as surely as if he had taken a sword to her, M. de Marsac! Will you, after that, leave her for them?’ He spoke plainly. And yet, God forgive me, it was some time before I understood him: before I took in the meaning of his words, or could transfer my thoughts from the absent to my mother lying on the bed before me. When I did do so, and turned to her, and saw her still face and thin hair straggling over the coarse pillow, then, indeed, the sight overcame me. I thought no more of others--for I thought her dead; and with a great and bitter cry I fell on my knees beside her and hid my face. What, after all, was this headstrong girl to me? What were even kings and king’s commissions to me beside her--beside the one human being who loved me still, the one being of my blood and name left, the one ever-patient, ever-constant heart which for years had beaten only for me? For a while, for a few moments, I was worthy of her; for I forgot all others. Simon Fleix roused me at last from my stupor, making me understand that she was not dead, but in a deep swoon, the result of the shock she had undergone. A leech, for whom he had despatched a neighbour, came in as I rose, and taking my place, presently restored her to consciousness. But her extreme feebleness warned me not to hope for more than a temporary recovery; nor had I sat by her long before I discerned that this last blow, following on so many fears and privations, had reached a vital part, and that she was even now dying.