Louis the Do-nothing was asleep at full length upon his lounge near to the table that was still covered with the dishes and vases of gold and silver. The King's sleep was painful and restless. A cold sweat ran down his forehead that waxed livid by the second. Presently an overpowering torpor succeeded his restlessness, and Louis remained plunged in apparent calmness, although his features were rapidly becoming cadaverous. Standing behind the lounge with his elbows resting against its head, Yvon the Calf contemplated the King of the Franks with an expression of somber and savage triumph. Yvon had dropped his mask of stupidity. His features now revealed undisguised intelligence, hidden until then by the semblance of idiocy. The profoundest silence reigned in the apartment now darkened by the approach of night. Suddenly, emitting a deep groan, the King awoke with a start. Yvon stooped down and disappeared behind the lounge while the King muttered to himself: "There is a strange feeling upon me.... I felt so violent a pain in my heart that it woke me up...." then looking towards the window: "What! Is it night!... I must have slept long.... Where is the Queen?... Why was I left alone?... I feel heavy and my feet are cold.... Halloa, someone!" he called out turning his face to the door, "Halloa, Gondulf!... Wilfrid!... Sigefried!" At the third name that he pronounced, Louis' voice, at first loud, became almost unintelligible, it sunk to a husky whisper. He sat up. "What is the matter with me? My voice is so feeble that I can hardly hear myself. My throat seems to close ... then this icy feeling ... this cold that freezes my feet and is rising to my legs!" The King of the Franks had barely uttered these words when a shudder of fear ran through him. He saw before him Yvon the Calf who had suddenly risen and now stood erect behind the head of the lounge. "What are you doing there?" asked Louis, and he immediately added with a sinking voice: "Run quick for some one.... I am in danger....", but interrupting himself he observed: "Of what use is such an order; the wretch is an idiot.... Why am I left thus alone?... I shall rouse myself," and Louis rose painfully; but hardly had he put his feet down when his limbs gave way under him and he fell in a heap with a dull thud upon the floor. "Help! Help!... Oh, God, have pity upon me!... Help!" "Louis, it is too late!" came from Yvon in a solemn voice. "You are about to die ... barely twenty years old, Oh, King of the Franks!" "What says that idiot? What is the Calf doing here?" "You are about to die as died last year your father Lothaire, poisoned by his wife! You have been poisoned by Queen Blanche!" Fear drew a long cry from Louis; his hair stood on end over his icy forehead, his lips, now purple, moved convulsively without producing a sound; his eyes, fixed upon Yvon, became troubled and glassy, but still retaining a last glimmer of intelligence, while the rest of his body remained inert.