I might have been awed by it. 'You can tremble for both of us,' I
whispered to Tavannes. But Tavannes' eyes were already caught by the
most mysterious feature of the scene. On a couch, near the old man, lay
a girl of strangest beauty,--slender and long like a snake, white as
ermine, livid as death, motionless as a statue. Perhaps it was a woman
just taken from her grave, on whom they were trying experiments, for she
seemed to wear a shroud; her eyes were fixed, and I could not see that
she breathed. The old fellow paid no attention to her. I looked at him
so intently that, after a while, his soul seemed to pass into mine. By
dint of studying him, I ended by admiring the glance of his eye,--so
keen, so profound, so bold, in spite of the chilling power of age. I
admired his mouth, mobile with thoughts emanating from a desire which
seemed to be the solitary desire of his soul, and was stamped upon every
line of the face. All things in that man expressed a hope which nothing
discouraged, and nothing could check. His attitude,--a quivering
immovability,--those outlines so free, carved by a single passion as
by the chisel of a sculptor, that IDEA concentrated on some experiment
criminal or scientific, that seeking Mind in quest of Nature, thwarted
by her, bending but never broken under the weight of its own audacity,
which it would not renounce, threatening creation with the fire it
derived from it,--ah! all that held me in a spell for the time being. I
saw before me an old man who was more of a king than I, for his glance
embraced the world and mastered it. I will forge swords no longer;
I will soar above the abysses of existence, like that man; for his
science, methinks, is true royalty! Yes, I believe in occult science."

"You, the eldest son, the defender of the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, and
Roman Church?" said Marie.

"I."

"What happened to you? Go on, go on; I will fear for you, and you will
have courage for me."

"Looking at a clock, the old man rose," continued the king. "He went
out, I don't know where; but I heard the window on the side toward
the rue Saint-Honore open. Soon a brilliant light gleamed out upon the
darkness; then I saw in the observatory of the hotel de Soissons another
light replying to that of the old man, and by it I beheld the figure
of Cosmo Ruggiero on the tower. 'See, they communicate!' I said
to Tavannes, who from that moment thought the matter frightfully
suspicious, and agreed with me