me from the hands of his
brother; but an infernal thought restrained him; a frightful smile
passed over his pallid lips, and he rubbed his hand across his eyes like
a man dazed. Then recovering himself by degrees, but without moving:

"Sire," he asked, "how did this book come into your Majesty's
possession?"

"I went into Henriot's room this morning to see if he was ready; he was
not there, he was probably strolling about the kennels or the stables;
at any rate, instead of him I found this treasure, which I brought here
to read at my leisure."

And the King again moistened his thumb, and again turned over an
obstinate page.

"Sire," stammered D'Alencon, whose hair stood on end, and whose whole
body was seized with a terrible agony. "Sire, I came to tell you"--

"Let me finish this chapter, Francois," said Charles, "and then you
shall tell me anything you wish. I have read or rather devoured fifty
pages."

"He has tasted the poison twenty-five times," murmured Francois; "my
brother is a dead man!"

Then the thought came to him that there was a God in heaven who perhaps
after all was not chance.

With trembling hand the duke wiped away the cold perspiration which
stood in drops on his brow, and waited in silence, as his brother had
bade him do, until the chapter was finished.

CHAPTER L.

HAWKING.

Charles still read. In his curiosity he seemed to devour the pages, and
each page, as we have said, either because of the dampness to which it
had been exposed for so long or from some other cause, adhered to the
next.

With haggard eyes D'Alencon gazed at this terrible spectacle, the end of
which he alone could see.

"Oh!" he murmured, "what will happen? I shall go away, into exile, and
seek an imaginary throne, while at the first news of Charles's illness
Henry will return to some fortified town near the capital, and watch
this prey sent us by chance, able at a single stride to reach Paris; so
that before the King of Poland even hears the news of my brother's death
the dynasty will be changed. This cannot be!"

Such were the thoughts which dominated the first involuntary feeling of
horror that had urged Francois to warn Charles. It was the never-failing
fatality which seemed to preserve Henry and follow the Valois which the
duke was again going to try to thwart. In an instant his whole plan with
regard to Henry was altered. It was Charles and not Henry who had read
the poisoned book. Henry was to h