"The room is quite ready, sir," said the valet, addressing Monsieur de Tronson, and at the same time opening a door on the right. "I lighted the fire, as the chamber has not been occupied since Monsieur de Laval left." "That was well," replied Tronson; "and you will remember to attend diligently upon this gentleman and see he has all he wants. You can put his own servant a bed in the dressing-closet, and let a tailor be sent for as soon as may be. And now, Monsieur Apsley, I will leave you for to-night. You can, when you desire exercise, take your walk in this passage and the neighboring rooms on that side; but a gentleman so well educated will, I know, remember that this is a palace, and not carry his peregrinations too far. On that side your walks will be impeded by the sentinel. Can I send you a book or any thing to amuse you?" "If you have got a copy of Homer or Horace," said Edward. Monsieur de Tronson shook his head with a laugh. "I fear you are too learned for us," he answered; "but I will see, and send you something, at all events. The room looks cheerful enough, does it not? and in the daytime there is a fine view over the Loire. The moon is late to-night. You had better bring more candles, Guillaume." And, with these words, he left the young Englishman, who, though the room was indeed a cheerful one and bright with lights and a warm fire, could not but feel that he was a prisoner. CHAPTER XVI. The first sensation in Edward's heart was certainly that of the loss of liberty. The next was of the loss of Lucette. But then came many unpleasant recollections; and not amongst the least unpleasant was the remembrance that he might very likely have incurred the loss of life. To take a false name, to enter a country with which his own was at war, with a false passport, to come, from a town actually in rebellion against her king, into that king's camp, and to be the bearer of letters to his enemies,--all gave him very much the character of a spy. Edward did not like his position at all; he did not like the steps which had led to it; he did not altogether like his own conduct. Yet what could he have done, when ordered by those he was bound to obey? He would do it again, he thought, if the same circumstances were to come over again; and yet to be hanged in a foreign country as a spy was a matter for which not all the orders of all the princes or potentates in the world could offer any consolation. He had walked some fifty times up and down the room, the simmering of his heart and brain acting upon him like the boiler of a locomotive steam-engine, when an ecclesiastic entered with some books, and spoke a few words of bad Latin to him, to which Edward replied in so much better Latinity that the good man speedily beat a retreat.