rine.

"Yea, think on thy soul, my son," said Perrotte solemnly, "and earn its
salvation by thy repentance."

"Let that woman be dragged from our presence, who thus dares to utter
treason and blasphemy in our face," exclaimed the Queen-mother,
forgetting her forbearance in her wrath.

"My son, my son! Let peace and pardon await thee," urged the old
Huguenot nurse, her face growing more wild with the excitement of the
moment.

"Madam," said Charles faintly to the Queen-mother, "would you shorten
the few moments still accorded to me of life? Perrotte, give me that
pen, guide my hand to that paper. Quickly, as thou lovedst me, woman!"

"Never," exclaimed Catherine, violently grasping the arm of her dying
son, as it approached the paper.

Charles raised his head to speak to her; but his emotions were too
violent for his feeble frame. His lips quivered; the blood rose to his
mouth, and choked his utterance. He fell back on his pillow, whilst a
hollow rattling sounded in his throat; the pen remained between his
powerless fingers.

"Ah! he is no more! he is dead!" screamed the nurse in despair, and she
flung herself upon the bed.

"No--no," said the Queen-mother to herself. "There is still life. My
son! Son," she continued aloud, "give me thy hand. If thou wilt sign
that paper--be it signed." And grasping his hand, she conducted it to
the place of signature on the paper. Mechanically the fingers followed
the impulse she bestowed upon them. But four letters only of the name of
Charles had been traced, when Catherine uttered a fearful scream. A
rough hand had grasped her own, and lacerated its skin. The first
thought of her superstitious mind was, that the arch-fiend himself had
risen up in bodily form before her. On to the bed had sprung the ape;
with a movement of detestation to the Queen-mother, which the animal had
always evinced, when she approached its master; it bit the hand that
held that of the dying king.

Catherine drew back with another cry, but after a moment she again
advanced her hand to grasp that of her son. When she took it within her
own it was utterly motionless; but, nothing daunted in her purpose, she
again fixed the pen between the dead fingers, and thus guiding them,
contrived to trace the three remaining letters, regardless of the stream
of blood, which, trickling from her wounded hand, besmeared that fatal
signature. Then letting fall the dead man's hand, she wrote her own name
firmly into t