The woman led him to the house, where the monarch was found lying on a flock-bed, with a coarse cloth thrown over him, in an obscure corner of the room. The old man knelt down, and asked him tenderly what ailed him, and whether he thought that, by the aid of medical remedies, he might recover? The king assured him there was no hope, and begged the supposed priest to receive his confession; whereupon the old man, bending over him, under pretence of discharging his holy office, drew a dagger, and stabbed the unresisting victim to the heart; repeating deliberately his thrusts, till he thought life was extinct. On hearing of the death of his father, James was inconsolable. He ordered all search to be made for the murderer. No trace of him could be found--the only evidence that could be procured against him was the description of his person by the old woman of the cottage, and the dagger with which the deed had been committed. The woman was taken before James, that he might receive the evidence with his own ears. The room in which he led the evidence was purposely darkened. The dreadful state of mind into which the _quasi_ parricide was cast, exhibiting alternately remorse, terror, grief, and shame, would have consigned him to absolute seclusion, had he not thought that he would make some amends for his crime, by endeavouring to discover the murderer of his parent. He threatened the most exemplary vengeance; and, while he sat wrapped in gloom, in an apartment darkened almost to night, his emissaries were active on every hand, in endeavouring to find some clue to the murder. The old woman was placed before the king, and the dagger put into his hands. "What is this?" he exclaimed, as he looked at the instrument, which still retained upon its blade the blood of his father's heart. "God's mercy! It is my own dagger!--ay, that very dagger I wore and lost upon that dreadful day!" The words were uttered in a low tone, and rendered, by the king's dreadful excitement, unintelligible. Partly recovering himself, he cast his eyes on the woman and the two courtiers that sat beside, and seeing them occupied in arranging the materials for taking down the precognition, he thrust the dagger among the folds of his robes, and sat and trembled, as if the finger of an avenging God was pointing him out to the world as the murderer of his father. He was several times on the point of swooning, as he thought he observed Lord Gray, who was present, following with his eye his extraordinary motions, and searching with a keen look for the dagger. "We had better have the dagger for the woman to speak to," said Gray. "Your majesty hath examined it, I opine." "Proceed with the precognition, my lord," said James, hesitatingly. "I shall retain the dagger, and examine it in private. My grief chokes me. I cannot put the questions. Proceed, my lord."