n my soul. But I shall have a priest of vulgar
mind, whose career and fortune I have ruined by my misfortune. He will
speak to me of God and death, as he has spoken to many another dying
man, not understanding that this one leaves his throne to an usurper,
his children to the cold contempt of public charity."

And he raised the medallion to his lips.

It was a dull, foggy night. A neighboring church clock slowly struck
the hour. The flickering light of the two candles showed fitful phantom
shadows in the lofty room. These were the ancestors of Charles, standing
back dimly in their tarnished frames.

An awful sadness enveloped the heart of Charles. He buried his brow in
his hands and thought of the world, so beautiful when one is about
to leave it; of the caresses of children, so pleasing and so sweet,
especially when one is parting from his children never to see them
again; then of his wife, the noble and courageous woman who had
sustained him to the last moment. He drew from his breast the diamond
cross and the star of the Garter which she had sent him by those
generous Frenchmen; he kissed it, and then, as he reflected, that she
would never again see those things till he lay cold and mutilated in the
tomb, there passed over him one of those icy shivers which may be called
forerunners of death.

Then, in that chamber which recalled to him so many royal souvenirs,
whither had come so many courtiers, the scene of so much flattering
homage, alone with a despairing servant, whose feeble soul could afford
no support to his own, the king at last yielded to sorrow, and his
courage sank to a level with that feebleness, those shadows, and that
wintry cold. That king, who was so grand, so sublime in the hour of
death, meeting his fate with a smile of resignation on his lips, now
in that gloomy hour wiped away a tear which had fallen on the table and
quivered on the gold embroidered cloth.

Suddenly the door opened, an ecclesiastic in episcopal robes entered,
followed by two guards, to whom the king waved an imperious gesture. The
guards retired; the room resumed its obscurity.

"Juxon!" cried Charles, "Juxon, thank you, my last friend; you come at a
fitting moment."

The bishop looked anxiously at the man sobbing in the ingle-nook.

"Come, Parry," said the king, "cease your tears."

"If it's Parry," said the bishop, "I have nothing to fear; so allow me
to salute your majesty and to tell you who I am and for what I am c