"No--all is past," murmured the king. "I feel that I am dying. Know you not that there is one accused of practising sorcery upon me. Folly! madness! An evil deed _has_ been practised upon me. Yes--the thought will not leave me. I would drive it away, but it still rankles in my heart. Evil _has_ been done me, but not by sorcery. And yet the sorcerer must die. The world must believe that it was he who worked my death; but it was another. Come here, Henry; bend your ear to me, for I can no longer rise. Wouldst thou know who it was?" A noise in the further part of the room startled the young King of Navarre at this moment, and he turned his head. The only living creature present was the favourite green ape of the king, that sat and grinned and moaned, as if in mockery of his dying master. "Come nearer, Henry," pursued the king, "for I would speak that to thee, that not the very walls may hear. Know you what has caused my death--who has been my murderer?" Henry bent his head over the dying man, more to satisfy a caprice of the sufferer, than in the expectation of any serious revelation; and, as Charles whispered in his ear, he started back in horror. "Oh, sire, think not so! Drive away so miserable a suspicion!" he said. "It were too horrible. It is impossible!" "Impossible!" repeated the king, with a faint ironical laugh. "To some hearts all things are possible." "You had a mother once," continued Charles, after a painful pause. "But she was good and kind; and she is dead. Know you how she died?--Mine still lives--and now it is I who die." "Speak not thus, I entreat you, sire!" interrupted Henry. "This is horrible!" "Horrible! is it not?" repeated the wretched king with the same harrowing laugh. "Henry! trust not yourself to the tender mercies of my mother!" Again the same strange noise struck upon the ear of Henry of Navarre. "Nor shall my people, my poor suffering people, be trusted to her care," continued the king with more energy. "Henry, thou art the only one, in this my palace of the Louvre, who loves me. In spite of all that has been said and done, thou alone hast left me in repose, hast never troubled my last days by conspiracies against my crown, and against my life--ay, my life! Brother has been set against Brother in bitter hatred. Thou alone hast not hated me, Henry. Thou alone, in spite of all the wrongs I have done thee--thou hast loved me. To thee I commend my poor patient wife--to thee I commend my people!" "But, sire, should it please Heaven to take you from us--and may you live long, I pray"--resumed Henry of Navarre, whilst the king shook his head--"it will be your mother who will claim the regency, until the return from Poland of your brother, Henry of Anjou. It will be hers probably to command!"