e did so, the figure of the woman, who had
again noiselessly entered the cell, stepped forward and stood near the
couch.

"Are you better?" she asked.

He raised himself on his elbow, surprised at the unexpected appearance
of his visitor.

"Jacqueline!" he said, wonderingly, recognizing the features of the
joculatrix. "I must have been unconscious all night." And he stared
from her toward the window.

"Yes," she returned with a peculiar smile; "all night." And bending
over him, she held a receptacle to his lips from which he mechanically
drank a broth, warm and refreshing, the while he endeavored to account
for the strangeness of her presence in the cell. She placed the bowl
on the floor and then, straightening her slim figure, again regarded
him.

"You are improving fast," she commented, reflectively.

"Thanks to your sovereign mixture," he answered, lifting a hand to his
bandaged head, and striving to collect his scattered ideas which
already seemed to flow more consecutively. The pain which had racked
his brow had grown perceptibly less since his last deep slumber, and a
grateful warmth diffused itself in his veins with a growing assurance
of physical relief. "But may I ask how you came here?" he continued,
perplexity mingling with the sense of temporary languor that stole over
him.

"I heard the duke tell the king you had attacked him and he had struck
you down," she replied, after a pause.

His face darkened; his head throbbed once more; with his fingers he
idly picked at the straw.

"And the king, of course, believed," he said. "Oh, credulous king!" he
added scornfully. "Was ever a monarch so easily befooled? A judge of
men? No; a ruler who trusts rather to fortune and blind destiny.
Unlike Charles, he looks not through men, but at them."

"Think no more of it," she broke in, hastily, seeing the effect of her
words.

"Nay, good Jacqueline," quickly retorted the jester; "the truth, I pray
you. Believe me, I shall mend the sooner for it. What said the
duke--as he calls himself?"

"Why, he shook his head ruefully," answered the girl, not noticing his
reservation. "'Your Majesty,' he said, 'for the memory of bygone
quibbles I sought him, but found him not--alack!--on the stool of
repentance.'"

About the fool's mouth quivered the grim suggestion of a half-smile.

"He is the best jester of us all," he muttered. "And then?" fastening
his eyes upon hers.

"'No sooner, Sire,' went on th