The sentry caught up his musketoon, thinking that this was one of the officers from the guard-room, and peered cautiously up the stairway. It was, however, a gentleman in private clothes who was slowly closing the door after him with, it seemed, some difficulty. The sentry, who knew no one had gone up, wondered who it could be. The stairs were so dark that he could distinguish no more than a slight figure, hatless, and wearing a cloak. There was a moment’s pause and silence, then the new-comer began to descend the wide, shadowed stairs, and the sentry knew who it was—there was only one person who moved about the palace with that slow and painful step, and that was the King. The man drew back, rigid, to his post. He wondered that the King should be coming down the state staircase unattended and on such an inclement day. As he stood, stiff at the salute, he watched the frail figure crawling with dragging pauses through the dusk. The King had one hand on the heavy balustrade, and, by grasping this, helped himself along. His head was bowed, and he continually paused to cough or gasp for breath, his hesitating and unequal steps began to rasp in the sentry’s brain—he wished some one else would come. It seemed an intolerable length of time as the King made his difficult progress from step to step, and the cloaked figure with the bent, hidden face and the one white hand, so thin that every bone in it showed, moving slowly down the baluster, affected the solitary watcher with a sense almost of terror. As the King approached this terror increased, as if some ghostly or unearthly presence neared. The hall and stairway rapidly darkened, and the King was but a shadow among shadows when he at length reached the last step and stood grasping the post with his left hand and holding his heart with his right. He stood there so long and so silently that the sentry’s sense of discomfort increased, and he felt a strong desire to turn and fly. Presently the King moved, with difficult, faltering steps, across the hall, and unlatched the door that gave on the courtyard. As he did so, a full ray of ghastly light fell across the obscurity, and the reason of the sudden darkness was explained, for a thin cloud of snow could be seen against the grey masonry of the palace. The sentry, who knew that it was dangerous for the King to go out save when the weather was very fair, was startled to see him standing there with the chill wind stirring his cloak and the bitter light of the snow on his face. He stepped forward instinctively, but the King did not hear him. After a few seconds William passed out, and, acting on an irresistible impulse, the sentry followed him.