deem me a saint, still desire my blessing. Bring that chair within the ruelle; sit down and listen."
Because he thought that already her mind was beginning to enter that hazy approach to death in which the senses lose all clearness, and the dying, when they speak at all, speak wanderingly, he neither showed nor felt wonderment at her words. Instead, because he desired to soothe and calm her, he did as she bade him, drawing the chair within the rail and holding her hand as he did so.
"Whatever," he said softly, "you may tell me can make no difference in my love and reverence for you--make me desire your blessing less or deem you less a saint. Yet--yet--if it pleases you to speak, if you have aught you desire to say, say on. Still, I beseech you, weary not yourself."
At first she did not answer him, but lay quite still, her eyes fixed on his face; lay so still that from far down the room he heard the ticking of the clock, heard the logs fall softly together with a gentle clash now and again, even found himself listening to a bird twittering outside in the garden.
Then, suddenly, once more her voice sounded clearly in the silence of the room; he heard her say: "What I tell you now will make me accursed in the eyes of all the Church--our Church. I am about to confide to you a secret that all in that Church have ordered me never to divulge, or I would have done it long since. Yet now I must tell it."
"A secret," he repeated silently to himself, "a secret!" Therefore he knew that her mind must indeed be wandering. What secret could this saintly woman have to reveal? Ah! yes, she was indeed wandering! Yet, even as he thought this, he reflected how strange a thing it was that, while he had actually a revelation to make to her--one that his honour prompted him to make--she, in the delirium of coming death, should imagine that she had something which it behooved her to disclose.
Once more he heard her speaking. Heard her say:
"All deem that with me perishes the last bearer, man or woman, of the de Rochebazon name. It is not so. There is probably one in existence."
"Madame!" the young man exclaimed very quietly, yet startled, almost appalled. "Madame! A de Rochebazon in existence! Are you conscious of what you are saying?" and he leaned a little over the coverlet and gazed into her eyes as he spoke. Surely this was wandering.
"As conscious as that I am dying here, as that you, Martin Ashurst, are sitting by my side."
"I am astounded. How long has what you state been known--supposed--by you?"
"Known--not supposed--since I became Henri de Beauvillier's wife, forty-six years ago."
"My God! What does it mean? A de Rochebazon alive! Man or woman?"
"Man!"
Again Martin exclaimed, "My God!" Then added: "And this man, therefore, is, has been since the death of your husband, the Prince de Rochebazon?"
"Before my husband's death," the other answered quietly, calmly, as though speaking on the most trivial subject. "My husband never was the prince."
Unintentionally, without doubt--perhaps, too, unnoticed by her--his hand released hers, slipping down from the bedside to his knee, where it lay, while he, his eyes fixed full on her now and still seeking to read in her face whether that which she uttered was the frenzy of a dying woman or an absolute truth, said slowly and distinctly:
"Nor you, therefore--that I must utter the words!--the princess?"
"Nor I the princess."
"It is incredible. Beyond all belief."
"It is true."
Again there was a pause; filled up on Martin Ashurst's part with a hurtling mass of thoughts which he could not separate one from the other, though above all others there predominated one--the thought that this was the derangement of a mind unhinged by the weakness of approaching death, clouded by the gradual decay of nature. And, thinking thus, he sat silent, wondering if in very truth--since all she had said seemed so utterly beyond the bound of possibility--it were worth disturbing her with questions.
Yet her next words seemed uttered as though with a determination to force him to believe that what she had said was no delusion.
"There are others who know it--only they will never tell."
"Others! Who?"
"Madame knows it"--he was well enough aware what "Madame" she referred to, and that it was to neither her of Orleans nor any of the daughters of the house of France--"so, too, does La Chaise, and also Chamillart. Also," and now her voice sank to a whisper, "Louis."
"Louis!" he repeated, also whisperingly, yet not recognising that his voice was lowered instinctively. "The king! knows and permits. My God!"
"He must permit, seeing that she--De Maintenon--holds him in a grasp of steel."
"Knowing--herself?"
"I have said."
Again over the room there fell a silence, broken only by the ticking of the distant clock; also now the shadows of evening were drawing on, soon the night would be at hand--a silence caused by the dying woman having ceased to speak, by the man at her side forbearing to ask more questions.
Yet he was warned by signs which even he, who had as yet but little acquaintance with death, could not misinterpret; that what more was to be told must be declared at once, or--never. For the dying woman made no further effort to divulge more, or to explain aught which should elucidate the strange statement she had startled him with; instead, lay back upon her pillows, her eyes open, it was true, but staring vacantly upon the embossed and richly-painted ceiling, her breathing still regular but very low.
"She will speak no more," he said to himself, "no more. Thank God, the secret does not die with her. Yet will those whom she has mentioned--this woman who is the king's wife; the king himself; La Chaise, who, if all accounts are true, is a lying, crafty priest; the minister Chamillart--will they assist to right a wrong? Alas, I fear not! Ah, if she could but speak again--tell all!"
As thus he thought, the door opened and the waiting maid came in, accompanied by a gentleman clad in sombre black, his lace being, however, of the whitest and most costly nature, and his face as white as that lace itself. And the girl, advancing down the room, followed by the other, explained to Martin, when she had reached the bed, that the gentleman accompanying her was Monsieur Fagon, premier Médecin du Roi.
Bowing to him with much courtliness, the physician passed within the ruelle and stood gazing down upon the dying woman in what was now no better than twilight, but going through, as the other observed, none of the usual ceremonies of feeling the pulse or listening to the breathing. Then once he nodded his head, after which he turned away, stepping outside the ruelle.
"What may we hope, monsieur?" the young man asked, following Fagon down the room.
"What," answered Fagon in return, "does monsieur hope?"
"That she may be spared for yet some hours--more, I fear, can scarcely be expected. Also that she may be able to speak again and clearly. I am her nephew, and, in a manner of speaking, am--was to be--her heir."
From under his bushy eyebrows Fagon shot a glance out of his small twinkling eyes. Then he said: "So I have heard. Yet monsieur, if he will pardon me, phrases his statement
