nes vouches for you. Monsieur de Commines." The King paused, and
the nervous fretful fingers plucked at the breast of his robe afresh.
He was utterly wearied and must have time to regain strength.
"Monsieur de Commines stands surety for you; never forget that. Your
faithfulness is his faithfulness, your failure his failure: keep that
always before you. To-morrow you will----, but first tell me something
of yourself." With a moan of weakness he settled back into the pillows
and his eyes closed. "I must know Philip's friend as Philip knows
him," said the soft voice.

And again La Mothe was touched to the heart, touched in his pride for
Commines, the King's trusted friend, touched in his grateful sympathies
that the King, weary and burdened by many anxieties, should find time
and thought for so kind an interest in one so insignificant as himself,
though that, too, was for Commines' sake; touched above all with a
generous self-reproach when he remembered his bitter satire on the
King's justice. He now saw that the severities which had horrified and
repelled him were exigencies of State, repugnant to the gentle, kindly
nature of the man in whose name the law took its course.

And out of that grateful heart of youth he spoke frankly as Tristan had
bidden him speak. Briefly, succinctly, he told of his childhood's
poverty, of the change which came later under Commines' unfailing,
affectionate liberality, of his placing him as a lad in the household
of Monsieur de Perche, of the life in Poitou with its training in arms
and simple teaching of Keep faith, Live clean, Follow the right and
trust God unafraid. It was a very simple story, but he told it well.
No tale grows cold in the interest or halts for words when the heart is
behind the telling.

And through it all Louis lay among his cushions like one dead. Not an
eyelid flickered, not a finger moved, his breath came so softly, so
quietly that the red robe scarcely stirred beneath his sunken chin.
Every muscle was relaxed in that restfulness which next to sleep is the
surest restorer of exhausted vitality. But the brain, the most acute
and cunning brain in France, was awake. With that dual consciousness
which, even more than dissimulation, is the diplomatist's prime
necessity for success in the worsting of an adversary, he gathered and
stored for use in his memory the salient points from La Mothe's story,
while all the while, co-energetically, his mind was busy sear