e?"

"I will not hide from you the fact that I have already thought of it."

"What should you do in that case?"

"And you?"

"I should be silent," replied La Mole, with a feverish flush.

"Silent?" cried Coconnas.

"Yes, if I had the strength."

"Well," said Coconnas, "if they insult me in any such way I promise you
I will tell them a few things."

"What things?" asked La Mole, quickly.

"Oh, be easy--things which will prevent Monsieur d'Alencon from sleeping
for some time."

La Mole was about to reply when the jailer, who no doubt had heard some
noise, appeared, and pushing each prisoner into his respective cell,
locked the doors again.

CHAPTER LV.

THE FIGURE OF WAX.

For a week Charles was confined to his bed by a slow fever, interrupted
by violent attacks which resembled epileptic fits. During these attacks
he uttered shrieks which the guards, watching in his chamber, heard with
terror, and the echoes of which reached to the farthest corner of the
old Louvre, aroused so often by many a dreadful sound. Then, when these
attacks passed, Charles, completely exhausted, sank back with closed
eyes into the arms of his nurse.

To say that, each in his way, without communicating the feeling to the
other, for mother and son sought to avoid rather than to see each other,
to say that Catharine de Medicis and the Duc d'Alencon revolved sinister
thoughts in the depths of their hearts would be to say that in that nest
of vipers moved a hideous swarm.

Henry was shut up in his chamber in the prison; and at his own request
no one had been allowed to see him, not even Marguerite. In the eyes of
every one his imprisonment was an open disgrace. Catharine and
D'Alencon, thinking him lost, breathed once more, and Henry ate and
drank more calmly, hoping that he was forgotten.

At court no one suspected the cause of the King's illness. Maitre
Ambroise Pare and Mazille, his colleague, thought it was inflammation of
the bowels, and had prescribed a regimen which aided the special drink
given by Rene. Charles received this, his only nourishment, three times
a day from the hands of his nurse.

La Mole and Coconnas were at Vincennes in closest confinement.
Marguerite and Madame de Nevers had made a dozen attempts to reach them,
or at least to send them a note, but without success. One morning
Charles felt somewhat better, and wished the court to assemble. This was
the usual custom in the morning, although for som