“Every detail is arranged; we cannot fail. To-morrow the guards within the walls will be doubled; a hundred Swiss will be posted at the entrance in the courtyard and on the grand staircase. When the Duke arrives, Crillon will see that the outer gates are closed. As soon as Guise enters the council-chamber, I will send for him into my closet. When he has passed through the guard-room to reach it, Nambre will bar the door, that he may not return. My trusty Dalahaide and the guards--the 45th--who will be hidden on the secret stair behind the arras, will then rush down, fall upon the traitor as he passes through the guard-room, and finish him.” Catherine, with haggard eyes, listens breathlessly. When the King has ceased speaking and looks round for a reply, she has fainted. * * * * * The next morning the sky was black with clouds. The month was December. It rained violently, and the wind howled round the corners of the château. Catherine, lying in the uneasy slumber of disease, was awakened at eight o’clock by the sound of heavy footsteps overhead. The state apartments are on the second floor, immediately over and corresponding with those of the Queen-mother. They still remain, gloomy and ill-omened, haunted by evil memories. Every plank has its history--each corner a ghastly detail. There is the hidden stair within the wall, concealed by tapestry, where Dalahaide and the guards hid; the door against which the great Balafré fell, stabbed by Malines in the breast, where he was spurned by the heel of the King, as he himself had spurned Coligni, and where he lay long uncovered, until an old carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse. * * * * * Catherine, listening breathlessly, hears the council assembling. Heavy footsteps are passing backwards and forwards through the guard-room overhead to the royal gallery where the council is to meet. Then all is hushed, and the face of the dying queen flushes with hope, and her hands clasp themselves in prayer, if, perchance, at the last moment Henry has relented and listened to her entreaties to spare the Duke. A moment after a door closes violently. She hears a single footstep--a powerful and firm footstep. It crosses the floor. Then came loud tramplings, as of a rush of armed men, a clash of weapons, a fall as of a heavy body; then a terrible cry-- “À moi, mes amis!--trahison!--à moi, Guise,--je me meurs.” The dying woman knows that all is over; she sinks back on her bed raving in delirium. In a few days she was dead. CHAPTER XXII. THE LAST OF THE VALOIS.