rembling.

'Then come, my friend, and talk to me.'

I went round the screen, and I know not how it was, the watching crowd
outside, the vacant ante-chamber in which I had stood, the stillness and
silence all seemed to be concentrated here, and to give to the man I saw
before me a dignity which he had never possessed for me when the world
passed through his doors, and the proudest fawned on him for a smile.
He sat in a great chair on the farther side of the hearth, a little red
skull-cap on his head, his fine hands lying still in his lap. The collar
of lawn which fell over his cape was quite plain, but the skirts of his
red robe were covered with rich lace, and the order of the Holy Ghost, a
white dove on a gold cross, shone on his breast. Among the multitudinous
papers on the great table near him I saw a sword and pistols; and some
tapestry that covered a little table behind him failed to hide a pair
of spurred riding-boots. But as I advanced he looked towards me with the
utmost composure; with a face mild and almost benign, in which I strove
in vain to read the traces of last night's passion. So that it flashed
across me that if this man really stood (and afterwards I knew that he
did) on the thin razor-edge between life and death, between the
supreme of earthly power, lord of France and arbiter of Europe, and the
nothingness of the clod, he justified his fame. He gave weaker natures
no room for triumph.

The thought was no sooner entertained than it was gone.

'And so you are back at last, M. de Berault,' he said gently. 'I have
been expecting to see you since nine this morning.'

'Your Eminence knew, then--' I muttered.

'That you returned to Paris by the Orleans gate last evening alone?' he
answered, fitting together the ends of his fingers, and looking at me
over them with inscrutable eyes. 'Yes, I knew all that last night. And
now, of your business. You have been faithful and diligent, I am sure.
Where is he?'

I stared at him and was dumb. In some way the strange things I had seen
since I had left my lodgings, the surprises I had found awaiting me
here, had driven my own fortunes, my own peril, out of my head--until
this moment. Now, at this question, all returned with a rush, and I
remembered where I stood. My heart heaved suddenly in my breast. I
strove for a savour of the old hardihood, but for the moment I could not
find a word.

'Well,' he said lightly, a faint smile lifting his moustache. 'You do