“I would rather take my own life than yours, De Launay!” he said--“No,--whatever difficulties I get myself into, you shall not suffer! But--as I told you a while ago,--there is something in me that must have its way. I am sick to death of conventionalities,--you must help me to break through them! You are right in saying that we live in strange times;--they are strange times!--and they may perchance be all the better for a strange King!” CHAPTER IV SEALED ORDERS Some hours later on, Sir Roger de Launay, having left his Sovereign’s presence, and being off duty for a time, betook himself to certain apartments in the west wing of the palace, where the next most trusted personage to himself in the confidence of the King, had his domicile,--Professor von Glauben, resident physician to the Royal Household. Heinrich von Glauben was a man of somewhat extraordinary character and individuality. In his youth he had made a sudden meteoric fame for his marvellous skill and success in surgery, as also for his equally surprising quickness and correctness in diagnosing obscure diseases and tracing them to their source. But, after creating a vast amount of discussion and opposition among his confrères, and almost reaching that brilliant point of triumph when his originality and cleverness were proved great enough to win him a host of enemies, he all at once threw up the game as it were, and, resigning the favourable opportunities of increasing distinction offered him in his native Germany, accepted the comparatively retired and private position he now occupied. Some said it was a disappointment in love which had caused his abrupt departure from the Fatherland,--others declared it was irritation at the severe manner in which his surgical successes had been handled by the medical critics,--but whatever the cause, it soon became evident that he had turned his back on the country of his birth for ever, and that he was apparently entirely satisfied with the lot he had chosen. His post was certainly an easy and pleasant one,--the members of the Royal family to which his services were attached were exceptionally healthy, as Royal families go; and he was seldom in more than merely formal attendance, so that he had ample time and opportunity to pursue those deeper forms of physiological study which had excited the wrath and ridicule of his contemporaries, as well as to continue the writing of a book which he intended should make a stir in the world, and which he had entitled “The Moral and Political History of Hunger.”