and, after all, I was not to pay the penalty.

But a word which fell from Frison as he fluttered round me, pouring out
the broth and cutting the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled my
satisfaction.

'Yes, your Excellency,' he said, confirming something he had stated
before and which I had missed, 'and I am told that the last time he came
into the gallery there was not a man of all the scores who had been at
his levee last Monday would speak to him. They fell off like
rats--just like rats--until he was left standing alone. And I have
seen him!'--Frison lifted up his eyes and his hands and drew in his
breath--'Ah! I have seen the King look shabby beside him! And his eye! I
would not like to meet it now.'

'Pish!' I growled. 'Someone has fooled you. Men are wiser than that.'

'So? Well, your Excellency understands,' he answered meekly. 'But--there
are no cats on a cold hearth.'

I told him again that he was a fool. But for all that, and my reasoning,
I felt uncomfortable. This was a great man, if ever a great man lived,
and they were all leaving him; and I--well, I had no cause to love him.
But I had taken his money, I had accepted his commission, and I
had betrayed him. These three things being so, if he fell before I
could--with the best will in the world--set myself right with him, so
much the better for me. That was my gain--the fortune of war, the turn
of the dice. But if I lay hid, and took time for my ally, and being here
while he still stood, though tottering, waited until he fell, what of my
honour then? What of the grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen?
I should be like the recreant in the old romance, who, lying in the
ditch while the battle raged, came out afterwards and boasted of his
courage.

And yet the flesh was weak. A day, twenty-four hours, two days, might
make the difference between life and death, love and death; and I
wavered. But at last I settled what I would do. At noon the next day,
the time at which I should have presented myself if I had not heard this
news, at that time I would still present myself. Not earlier; I owed
myself the chance. Not later; that was due to him.

Having so settled it, I thought to rest in peace. But with the first
light I was awake, and it was all I could do to keep myself quiet until
I heard Frison stirring. I called to him then to know if there was any
news, and lay waiting and listening while he went down to the street to
learn. It seemed an endl