The effect of these words upon the king was like a blow from an invisible power and he would have started from his chair had his bandaged legs permitted. But disabled as he was, he half raised himself, his hands cleaved the air and his pupils dilated while his face grew crimson. "Does your Royal Highness require proofs of what I say?" exclaimed the old man, his green eyes darting fire. "Well, then, listen. I will reveal to you a secret thought which you have never imparted to man. Does your Royal Highness remember the morning when you accompanied his late Majesty to the chase and the fearful temptation which assailed you in the woods of Saint Humbert? The king was a dozen steps ahead of you. Your finger was already on the trigger. A branch impeded your arm--" The alarmed monarch held his throbbing head in his hands while the merciless indictment grew more and more ominous. "From your earliest years you coveted the throne. The ill-fated king was the obstacle and you sought to remove him. Unremitting were your fratricidal schemes. You scrupled not to encourage the discontented and to instigate the seditious. What obloquy to have made pacts with the violators of the crown and compromises with the destroyers of churches! Providence permitting, the monarchy would perish. It _shall_ perish! I am chosen to announce its fall. Not through the sword of an enemy but by its own hand shall it come to its end." The screen seemed to move and a rushing was audible, but the king remained silent, terrified and incapable of speech or motion. "Your cousin, the Duke of Orleans, interposed between your Royal Highness and your partisans. Another crime,--was it? You continued to plot the destruction of your brother and the dishonor of the queen. Does your Royal Highness remember who wrote those scurrilous verses and the words dropped at the baptism of the king's daughter? What ferocious joy the first Dauphin's death caused you! Who notified the Convention that the royal family might be detained on the frontier--the mission of Valory? To what end was Favras sacrificed? Who burned the documents? Those ashes appeal! Blood, blood has been spilled! but only the first blood. More is to follow!" As Martin paused, the only sound to be heard in the apartment was the chattering of the king's teeth. The screen creaked repeatedly as though to suggest and to warn, but the king remained speechless and the implacable peasant resumed: