The woman, however, would not heed the words of the King. She hung back, convulsed with terror. Charles, laughing a little still, prepared to do the office himself. He took young Lord Farnham in his arms, lifted him up among the sheets into a sitting posture, and made a wall of his pillows to keep him in it. The lad’s skin seemed to burn the arms of his monarch like a live coal; his whole frame shook and quivered; he was racked with a hectic weakness he was striving to control. The King, having at last fixed him deftly thus, turned triumphantly towards the lady. “Confess, madam,” he said, “that you would not think, to look at us, that we had such a cunning in attendance on the sick. And now we must ask you to leave us for a minute. Only for a minute, madam; we will not deny you longer, we do promise you.” “No, Sire,” she answered, firmly, “I cannot go; I will not go. Harry, art thou mad?” “I think I am,” said the young man, sitting up among the pillows, in a voice so small and querulous it sounded like a child’s. “I think I am.” “I will not stand by and see a murder done,” said the woman, with a sudden resolution. “Sire, my poor lad is unhinged; he is not sane. I beseech you not to heed him.” “Sane or mad,” said the King, “whenever our family can make a requital to his in the smallest particular, Charles Stuart shall not withhold it. The man hath set his heart upon it; he shall have all that he desires.” “Nay, Sire, he shall not,” said the woman, defiantly. In her capacity of faithful subject and hero-worshipper, the unhappy lady would have submitted to her tongue being torn out rather than such words should have been uttered by it to her Prince. But as a mother, a wife, and a woman, there was no other course than to utter them. Besides, the King was a young man, too. In a sense she felt that her riper years made her the mentor of both these headstrong youths. She seized the case of pistols lying on the settle beside the bed. Her fingers closed upon them convulsively. “Madam, I must ask you to give them to us,” said the King. “Never!” said the woman. The King shrugged his shoulders and put his brows up whimsically. “Vous êtes difficile,” he said. “Celui qui force une femme contre son gré ne viendra jamais à bout. Now, madam, if I make my tone very winning, very coaxing, wilt thou not give them to me? Come, my dearest lady.” The King held out his hand to take them with a pretty air. “Never!” said the lady. Her fingers grasped them tighter than before. “Patsy,” said the man in the pillows, in his weak voice, “do not be a fool.” The King exchanged his look of slightly humorous deprecation for a mock severity. “Madam, the King commands you,” he said. “I will not!” said the lady; she stamped her imperious foot. She was as pale as death. Her teeth were clenched. Her chin and mouth were as hard as the King’s eyes.