his head with a look of mournful resignation, and
then bowed and left the apartment.

"Now speak, madam," said the king, "and quickly. What would you reveal
to me?"

"That Henry of Navarre conspires against your throne," commenced
Catherine, rapidly; "that he has been proved to be in connexion with
that sorcerer who has aimed at your life; that the chiefs of the
accursed Huguenot party are concealed in Paris, awaiting but your death
to place the crown upon his brow; that he also looks to this event to
abjure once more the true Catholic faith, and return into the bosom of
heresy; that by giving power into his hands, you endanger the safety of
the state; that by committing the rule of the country to a Heretic and a
Seceder, you endanger the safety of your own soul; that, by such a step,
the honour of our House will be eternally lost; that in all the
countries of Catholic Christendom, we shall be pointed at with the
finger of scorn and shame."

"Madam, you have deceived me with words of equivocation to gain my ear,"
replied the king, mustering all the strength that still remained to him,
"and you deceive me now."

"I deceive you not, my son," pursued Catherine, eagerly. "Each word that
I pronounce is God's own truth. Could you then confide into the power of
a base and lying Heretic, one who seeks your death, but to grasp himself
the Crown, the government of a Catholic and a Christian country? Hear
you not already the anathema of our holy father, the Pope, that curses
even in the tomb that soul lost by a step so rash? See you not already
our blessed Virgin, and all the saints of Heaven, turn from you their
glorious faces, and refuse to look on one who has despised them, and set
them at nought by a deed so unholy? Feel you not already the torture of
that punishment to which the Heretic, and the aider and abettor of the
Heretic, are eternally condemned? Have I deceived you when I said that
you endanger the welfare of your own immortal soul?"

"But you err, madam," said her miserable son, shuddering at the picture
thus placed before him, to work upon his mind in these last moments.
"Henry is become a good and fervent Catholic."

"All is ready for his abjuration at the moment of your death," continued
the Queen-mother. "To resume a powerful party among the Huguenots, he
will renounce our religion. My son--my son--pause, reflect, before you
thus sacrifice your own salvation, and throw your unhappy country
beneath the Pap