"A paper," said the principal agent with joy, when he saw what Von Apsberg had in his hand. "It is, perhaps, a plan of escape. This must be taken to the Director for the _Procureur du Roi_. Another scheme, perhaps, of the Jacobin has come to light----" He put the paper in his huge pocket. "Take this man away, said he to the gens d'armes, and do not let him speak a word to the prisoner." Rushing on Von Apsberg like famished wolves, they bore him away, and left the Duke alone with his son. The shock had done the prisoner much injury. He sunk back on his bed with a violent cough, and felt a mortal coldness glide over his frame and chill his blood. "A doctor, a doctor," said the Duke, rushing towards the door. "A physician, for heaven's sake. My son is dying." The door did not close. The poor father leaning over his child pressed his lips to his burning brow, and then supported his head, from time to time attempting to warm his icy hands with his breath. He continued to call in heaven's name for a physician. Half an hour after Von Apsberg's arrest, and while the Duke yet pressed his son's inanimate body, three men appeared in the room. They were the Director, Doctor, and Jailer of the prison. "Monsieur," said the Duke to the Director, rising to his full stature, and with a tone of painful solemnity, "you are an accomplice in a great crime, and before the country and king, I, Duke d'Harcourt, peer of France, and grand cordon of the Saint Esprit, will accuse you." "What mean you, sir?" said the Director, with a terror he could not conceal. "Of what do you complain?" "That you have placed in a cell, without air and light, as if he were sentenced to death, a man against whom there is now a mere suspicion; for he has not been tried. I complain that you have wrested from me a physician I have brought hither to attend to my son--and that with horrible brutality you have taken possession of a prescription for a remedy which might have preserved him, and have by this means deprived him of life." The Duke spoke but too truly, for a kind of suffocation took possession of the young man. His breast seemed oppressed, and every sign of death was visible. The Director muttered some apology in defence of himself, but the Duke said, "Not another word here, sir; accomplish your task in peace; or at least, give me back the paper. It is the life of my son----" As the Director was about to go in person for it, the Doctor called him back and pointed to the patient over whose countenance death began to steal. He said, "It is too late!"