CHAPTER V.BEHIND THE PUPPET BOOTH.
While the absent-minded hunter strode down toward the lower town, and Maurice sipped his cognac, the king lay in his bed in the palace and aimlessly fingered the counterpane.

There was now no beauty in his face.
It was furrowed and pale, and an endless fever burned in the sunken eyes--eyes like coals, which suddenly flare before they turn to ash.
The archbishop nor the chancellor could see anything in the dim corners of the royal bed chamber, but he could.

It was the mocking finger of death, and it was leveled at him.

Spring had come, and summer and autumn and winter, and spring again, but he had not wandered through the green fields, except in dreams, and the byways he loved knew him no more.

Ah, to sit still like a spectator and to see the world pass by! To be a part of it, and yet not of it! To see the glory of strength and vigor just beyond one's grasp, the staffs to lean on crumble to the touch, and the stars of hope fade away one by one from the firmament of one's dreams! Here was weariness for which there was no remedy.
Day by day time pressed him on toward the inevitable.