But Charles flung out his hand with his rare gesture of command:—
“Nay, my lord.—He is dead, or dying. Little Satans do not do their work by halves. He is dead or soon will be.—Odd’s fish!” added the King, after a moment’s frowning meditation, “when you lured that linnet, his sister, to sing for you in the Tower, Harry, you little thought her song was to have such an echo!”
Rockhurst stared for a moment horror-stricken—his glance roamed from the broken beaker to the cups on the table and thence to Enguerrand’s convulsed face. A glimmering of the truth began to dawn upon him; the mystery was dissolving before a tragic and dreadful light. Even in the midst of the King’s words he dropped on one knee to raise the prone figure. The livid head fell limply back over his arm. The King cast one look down and averted his eyes.
“Away with him!” he cried, in an explosion of nervous irritability. “Away with him! Call whomsoever you want to carry him, do what you list, get what physician you wish,—the lad’s dead, and ’tis the end of it! You understand, I’ll not hear another word about the matter.… Gadzooks! what a finish to a tedious day! Away with him, I command you, my Lord Rockhurst!”
Rockhurst, who had half risen at the King’s sharp tones, now bent once more down and gathered the inert form into his arms.
“Will your Majesty, then, open the door for me?” he said, in a low voice.
The King sprang up from his chair, dashing his napkin on one side, and flung open the door with an angry hand.
The slam of its closing echoed down the great corridors. So would Charles ever shut the unpleasant episode out from his life. Yet he had not quite succeeded: as he went moodily back to the table, his foot struck against the empty little phial. With precaution, placing the napkin between it and his palm, he held it to the light. It was wrought of Italian glass, with twisted lines of blue and red, not much larger than a filbert nut.
A vision swam before his eyes: Rockhurst’s face, upturned as he had but just now seen that of his French page; and, like it, livid in the hues of death.