s part when the
crucial time came of some one visiting the room and finding that the
Comte's attendants were no longer there.

"It is for the King of France!" he muttered, when at last the dread and
horror of his position had culminated in a feverish fit that seemed as
if it would end by his springing out of bed, tearing off the mockery of
his disguise, and hurrying through the outer chamber into the corridor
to seek the company of the nearest guards.

"It means hastening the discovery," he muttered, "but I can bear this no
longer. It is too much."

He lay panting heavily for some few moments before a reaction came,
following quickly upon the one question he asked himself, contained in
that one little word:

"Why?"

He began breathing more easily the next moment, for the weak boy had
mastered, and manliness was coming to his aid.

"Oh," he muttered to himself, "am I to be as cowardly as a girl? It is
too childish. Afraid of shadows, shrinking from lying alone in the
dark! Why, I shall fancy next that I shall be afraid to lie here with
the sun shining brightly, through the panes. What difference is there
between the light and darkness? I can make it black darkness even at
noonday if I close my eyes. I know why it is. I am tired and faint.
There is no danger--for me. The danger is to the King. This is only a
trick, a masquerade. Sooner or later I shall be found out. But what
then? I am only a lad, and this King Harry would be a bloodthirsty
monster if he had me slain for what is after all only a boyish prank. I
have nothing to do but lie here quite still, as if a sick man, and very
bad. They will find out at last. Well, let them. I am utterly tired
out with all I have gone through. My head is as weary as my bones, and
now all this weak cowardice has gone I am going to do what I should do
here in bed, and go to sleep.

"Oh, impossible! Impossible!" muttered the lad wearily. "Who could
sleep at such a time as this?"

He rose upon his elbow and said those words in a hoarse whisper, as if
he were questioning the shadows that surrounded the great curtained bed.

There was no reply from the weird and shadowy forms, uncouth, strange,
and distorted; but he answered his piteous, despairing question himself.

"I can," he said, "and--"

There was a pause of a few moments, and then he muttered between his set
teeth:

"--and I will."

With a quick movement he drove his clenched fist two or three ti