"
I waited. The King, who understood nothing but had listened to
my answers with eager attention, and marked no less closely the
agitation which they caused in the unknown, leant forward to
listen. But the bed creaked no more; the curtain hung still;
even the voice, which at last issued from the curtains, was no
more like the ordinary accents of a man than are those which he
utters in the paroxysms of epilepsy. "Are you--sorry?" the
unknown muttered--involuntarily, I think; hoping against hope;
not daring to depart from a formula which had become second
nature. But I could fancy him clawing, as he spoke, at his
choking throat.
France, however, had suffered too long at the hands of that race
of men, and I had been too lately vilified by them to feel much
pity; and for answer I lifted a voice that to the quailing wretch
must have been the voice of doom. "Sorry?" I said grimly. "I
must be--or hang! For to-morrow the King examines his books, and
the next day I--hang!"
The King's hand was on mine, to stop me before the last word was
out; but his touch came too late.
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