A feeling of intense and painful interest had kept St. Maurice at the window till the moment that the unhappy soldier covered his own eyes with the handkerchief; but then a sensation of giddy sickness forced him away, and he cast himself down once more, with bitterer feelings than ever at his heart. The world seemed all a hell of cares and sorrows, and he could have died that moment with hardly a regret. After he had lain there for nearly two hours, he once more rose, and approached the window. The crowd were all gone, but the dark scaffold still remained, and the young soldier drew back again, saying to himself, "Who next? who next?" He lay down and tried to sleep, but his throbbing temples and his heated blood rendered the effort vain. Strange wild images rose up before his eyes. Fiends and foul shapes where grinning at him in the air. Fire seemed circling through his veins, and burning his heart; he talked; with no one to hear--he raved--he struggled--and then came a long term of perfect forgetfulness, at the end of which he woke as from a profound sleep. He was weak as a child, and his ideas of the past were but faint and confused. The first thing, however, that returned to memory was the image of his cell, and he cast his heavy eyes around, in search of the bolts, and bars, and grated windows; but no such things were near. He was in a small but handsome room, with the open lattice admitting the breath of many flowers, and by his side sat an old and reverend dame, whom he had never seen before. A few faint but coherent words, and the light of intelligence re-awakened in his eye, showed the nurse, for such she was, that the fever had left him, and going out of the chamber, she returned with a soldier-like man, whom St. Maurice at once remembered as the old Count de Belin, who had arrested him at Bourg. Many words of comfort and solace were spoken by the old soldier, but St. Maurice was forbidden to utter a syllable, or ask a question, for several days. A physician, too, with grave and solemn face, visited him twice each day, and gave manifold cautions and warnings as to his treatment, which the young gentleman began soon to think unnecessary, as the firm calm pulse of health grew fuller and fuller in his frame. At length one day, as he lay somewhat weary of restraint, the door opened, and Henry IV. himself stood by his bed-side. "New, faith, my good young Count," said the monarch, "I had a hearty mind to keep you to silence and thin bouillon for some days longer, to punish certain rash words spoken in the Bastile, casting a stigma upon royal gratitude for leaving faithful friends, who had lost all in our behalf, to poverty and want. But I have lately heard all your story, and more of it than you thought I ever would hear; and therefore, though I shall take care that there be no more reproaches against my gratitude, as a punishment for your crimes, I shall sell you as a slave for ever. Come hither, sweet taskmaster," he added,