ing he was certain, the King was a man
much maligned and little understood: harsh of word and stern of act,
perhaps, but with a great, undreamed wealth of tenderness behind the
apparent austerity. Of that the little coat of mail and tinselled mask
bore witness. It was wonderful, he told himself, how the yearnings of
the human heart found excuse for what the sterner brain condemned;
surely that was where the human drew nearest to the divine! This was
not alone a master to serve, but a man to love!

And Louis, a huddled, shapeless mass on his tossed cushions, sat
gnawing his finger-tips and staring with dull eyes into vacancy. All
passion had died from him and suddenly he had grown very old, though
the indomitable spirit knew no added touch of age.

"My son," he said, shivering, "my son, my son." Then the bent
shoulders straightened, the bowed head was raised, and into the tired
eyes there shot a gleam of fire. "I have no son but France!" Was he a
hypocrite? Who can tell? But let the man who never deceived himself
to another's hurt cast the first stone at him.

When the little troop of ten or a dozen rode from Valmy the next
morning on their way to Amboise he was there upon the walls, a solitary
grey figure pathetic in his utter loneliness. Nor, so long as they
were in sight, did his eyes wander from them.

CHAPTER VII

FOUR-AND-TWENTY, WITH THE HEART OF EIGHTEEN

Many, deep, and diverse are the springs of silence. If Commines asked
no question when La Mothe returned from his interview with Louis, and
made no comment beyond "You are late, my son," it was because he knew
that curiosity was almost as dangerous as opposition where the schemes
or secrets of his master were concerned. La Mothe, in his ignorance,
had on the other hand no such thought, no such fear, but a charge which
he held sacred had been solemnly committed to him: he shared a secret
with the King and the first necessity was silence. Whatever Commines'
ultimate orders might be he understood now what his mission was, this
mission to Amboise: it was to do for the father what the father might
not do for himself, and as they rode slowly along the high road from
Valmy he thought complacently to himself that he alone recognized the
true nature of the man who watched them from the walls.

But there were obvious limits to the silence if the line of procedure
laid down by the King was to be followed. A parting and a meeting were
to be arran