onscious outcome of his thoughts.

The King raised his hand, as though to impose silence. Madame bowed in
apologetic submission, M. de Perrencourt took no heed of the gesture,
although he did not speak again. A moment later he laid his hand on
Colbert's shoulder and whispered to him. I thought I heard just a
word--it was "Fontelles." Colbert looked up and nodded. M. de
Perrencourt folded his arms on the back of the chair, and his face
resumed its impassivity.

Another moment elapsed before the King spoke. His voice was calm, but
there seemed still to echo in it a trace of some violent emotion newly
passed; a slight smile curved his lips, but there was more malice than
mirth in it.

"Mr Dale," said he, "the gentleman who stands by you once beguiled an
idle minute for me by telling me of a certain strange prophecy made
concerning you which he had, he said, from your own lips, and in which
my name--or at least some King's name--and yours were quaintly coupled.
You know what I refer to?"

I bowed low, wondering what in Heaven's name he would be at. It was, no
doubt, high folly to love Mistress Gwyn, but scarcely high treason.
Besides, had not I repented and forsworn her? Ah, but the second member
of the prophecy? I glanced eagerly at M. de Perrencourt, eagerly at the
paper before the King. There were lines on the paper, but I could not
read them, and M. de Perrencourt's face was fully as baffling.

"If I remember rightly," pursued the King, after listening to a
whispered sentence from his sister, "the prediction foretold that you
should drink of my cup. Is it not so?"

"It was so, Sir, although what your Majesty quotes was the end, not the
beginning of it."

For an instant a smile glimmered on the King's face; it was gone and he
proceeded gravely.

"I am concerned only with that part of it. I love prophecies and I love
to see them fulfilled. You see that cup there, the one that is not quite
full. That cup of wine was poured out for me, the other for my friend M.
de Perrencourt. I pray you, drink of my cup and let the prophecy stand
fulfilled."

In honest truth I began to think that the King had drunk other cups
before and left them not so full. Yet he looked sober enough, and the
rest were grave and mute. What masquerade was this, to bring me under
guard and threat of death to drink a cup of wine? I would have drunk a
dozen of my free will, for the asking.

"Your Majesty desires me to drink that cup of wine?" I