You understand me .-- Farewell.

Be wary, and thou hast a friend." The King had scarce spoken these words ere he disappeared behind the arras, leaving Quentin to meditate on what he had seen and heard.

The youth was in one of those situations from which it is pleasanter to look forward than to look back; for the reflection that he had been planted like a marksman in a thicket who watches for a stag, to take the life of the noble Count of Crevecoeur, had in it nothing ennobling.

It was very true that the King's measures seemed on this occasion merely cautionary and defensive; but how did the youth know but he might be soon commanded on some offensive operation of the same kind?
This would be an unpleasant crisis, since it was plain, from the character of his master, that there would be destruction in refusing, while his honour told him that there would be disgrace in complying.

He turned his thoughts from this subject of reflection with the sage consolation so often adopted by youth when prospective dangers intrude themselves on their mind, that it was time enough to think what was to be done when the emergence actually arrived, and that sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.
Quentin made use of this sedative reflection the more easily that the last commands of the King had given him something more agreeable to think of than his own condition.