cy, a good horse and freedom await you. At the
other, through which you have just passed, if you listen to the voice of
ambition--What do you say?"

"I say that if the King makes me regent, madame, I, and not you, shall
give orders to the soldiers. I say that if I leave the castle at night,
all these pikes, halberds, and muskets shall be lowered before me."

"Madman!" murmured Catharine, exasperated, "believe me, and do not play
this terrible game of life and death with me."

"Why not?" said Henry, looking closely at Catharine; "why not with you
as well as with another, since up to this time I have won?"

"Go to the King's apartments, monsieur, since you are unwilling to
believe or listen to anything," said Catharine, pointing to the stairway
with one hand, and with the other toying with one of the two poisoned
daggers she always wore in the black shagreen case, which has become
historical.

"Pass before me, madame," said Henry; "so long as I am not regent, the
honor of precedence belongs to you."

Catharine, thwarted in all her plans, did not attempt to struggle, but
ascended the stairs ahead of the King of Navarre.

CHAPTER LXIV.

THE REGENCY.

The King, beginning to grow impatient, had summoned Monsieur de Nancey
to his room, and had just given him orders to go in search of Henry,
when the latter appeared.

On seeing his brother-in-law at the door Charles uttered a cry of joy,
but Henry stood motionless, as startled as if he had come face to face
with a corpse.

The two physicians who were at the bedside and the priest who had been
with Charles withdrew.

Charles was not loved, and yet many were weeping in the antechambers. At
the death of kings, good or bad, there are always persons who lose
something and who fear they will not find it again under the successor.

The mourning, the sobbing, the words of Catharine, the sinister and
majestic surroundings of the last moments of a king, the sight of the
King himself, suffering from a malady common enough afterwards, but
which, at that time, was new to science, produced on Henry's mind, which
was still youthful and consequently still susceptible, such a terrible
impression that in spite of his determination not to cause Charles fresh
anxiety as to his condition, he could not as we have said repress the
feeling of terror which came to his face on perceiving the dying man
dripping with blood.

Charles smiled sadly. Nothing of those around them esca