"I have but to tell the King--" "But, my friend," I exclaimed impatiently, "I am to die in the morning!" "And the King shall be told to-day--now, at once.

I will go to him." I stared askance a moment; then the thought of the uproar that I had heard recurring to me, "Has the King arrived already ?" I exclaimed.
"Naturally, monsieur.

How else do I come to be here?
I am in His Majesty's train." At that I grew again impatient.

I thought of Roxalanne and of how she must be suffering, and I bethought me that every moment Mironsac now remained in my cell was another moment of torture for that poor child.
So I urged him to be gone at once and carry news of my confinement to His Majesty.

He obeyed me, and I was left alone once more, to pace up and down in my narrow cell, a prey to an excitement such as I should have thought I had outlived.
At the end of a half-hour Castelroux returned alone.
"Well ?" I cried the moment the door opened, and without giving him so much as time to enter.