Around the room, the dark old panels of which, unrelieved by pictures and hangings, rendered it gloomy and severe, were scattered books and instruments, such as were used by the astronomers, or rather astrologers, of the day, and a variety of other objects of a bizarre and mysterious form, which, as the light of the lamp flickered feebly upon them, might have been taken, in their dark nooks, for the crouching forms of familiar imps, attendant upon a sorcerer. After some study of his manuscripts, the old man shook his head, and, rising, walked to the window, which stood open upon a heavy stone balcony. The night was bright and calm; not a cloud, not a vapour dimmed the glitter of the countless myriads of stars in the firmament; and the moon poured down a flood of light upon the roofs of the surrounding houses, and on the dark towers of the not far distant Louvre, which seemed quietly sleeping in the mild night-air, whilst within were fermenting passions, many and dark, like the troubled dreams of the apparently tranquil sleeper. As the old man stepped upon the balcony, he turned up his head with an assumed air of inspiration to the sky, and considered the stars long and in silence. The female had also risen and followed him to the window; but she remained cautiously in the shadow of the interior of the room, whence she watched with increasing interest the face of the astrologer. Again, after this study of the stars, the old man returned to his table, and began to trace new figures in various corners of the patterned horoscopes, and make new calculations. The female stood before him, resting her hands upon the table, awaiting with patience the result of these mysteries of the cabala. "Each new experience verifies the former," said the astrologer, raising up his head at last. "The truth cannot be concealed from your majesty. His hours are numbered--he cannot live long." "And it is of a surety _he_, of whom the stars thus speak?" enquired the female thus addressed, without emotion. "The horoscopes all clash and cross each other in many lines," answered the astrologer: "but they are not confounded with his. The horoscope of near and inevitable death is that of your son Charles, the King." "I know that he must die," said the Queen-mother coldly, sitting down. The astrologer raised for an instant his deep-set, but piercing grey eyes, to the pale, passionless face of the Queen, as if he could have read the thoughts passing within. There was almost a sneer upon his lip, as though he would have said, that perhaps none knew it better; but that expression flickered only, like a passing flash of faint summer lightning, and he quickly resumed--