rsemen appeared on the mount.

"The outriders!" he said in surprise. "Why have they returned?"

"They are bearing some one on a litter," answered the attendant noble,
"and--_cap de Dieu_--there is a woman with them!"

As the troops approached, the emperor strode forward. Out in the
sunlight his face appeared older, more careworn, but although it cost
him an effort to walk, his step was unfaltering. A moment he surveyed
the men with peremptory glance, and then, casting one look at their
burden, uttered an exclamation. His surprise, however, was of short
duration. At once his features resumed their customary rigor.

"What does this mean?" he asked, shortly, addressing the leader of the
soldiers. "Is he badly hurt?"

"That I can not say, your Majesty," replied the man. "A horse fell
upon his leg, which is badly bruised, and there may be other injuries."

"Where did you find him?" continued the emperor, still regarding the
pale face of the _plaisant_.

"Not far from here, your Majesty. The woman was sitting in the road,
holding his head."

Charles' glance swiftly sought the jestress and then returned.

"They were being pursued, for shortly after we came a squad of men
appeared from the opposite direction. When they saw us they fled. The
woman insisted upon being brought here, when she learned of your
Majesty's presence."

"Take the injured man into the next tent and see he has every care. As
for the woman, I will speak with her alone."

"Your Majesty's orders to break camp--" began the courtier.

"We have changed our mind and will remain here for the present." And
the emperor, without further words, turned and reentered his pavilion.

With his hands behind him, he stood thoughtfully leaning against a
table; his countenance had become somber, morose. The twinges of pain
from a disease which afterward caused him to abdicate the throne and
relinquish all power and worldly vanities for a life of religious
meditation began to make themselves felt. Love--ambition--what were
they? The perishable flesh--was it the all-in-all? Those sudden pangs
of the body seemed like over-forward confessors abruptly admonishing
him.

The jester and the woman--Francis and the princess--what had they
become to him now? Figures in an intangible, illusory dream. Deeply
religious, repentant, perhaps, for past misdeeds at such a moment as
this, the soldier-emperor stood before a silver crucifix.

"_Credo in sanctum_,"