Then rising:
"Will you permit the trial to begin, sire?"
"I desire it, madame," replied Charles, "and the sooner the better."
Catharine pressed the hand of her son without comprehending the nervous grasp with which he returned it, and left the apartment without hearing the sardonic laugh of the King, or the terrible oath which followed the laugh.
Charles wondered if it were not dangerous to let this woman go thus, for in a few hours she would have done so much that there would be no way of stopping it.
As he watched the curtain fall after Catharine, he heard a light rustle behind him, and turning he perceived Marguerite, who raised the drapery before the corridor leading to his nurse's rooms.
Marguerite's pallor, her haggard eyes and oppressed breathing betrayed the most violent emotion.
"Oh, sire! sire!" she exclaimed, rushing to her brother's bedside; "you know that she lies."
"She? Who?" asked Charles.
"Listen, Charles, it is a terrible thing to accuse one's mother; but I suspected that she remained with you to persecute them again. But, on my life, on yours, on our souls, I tell you what she says is false!"