"Master, you make me shudder," said Gilbert, "when you utter such sayings with your inexorable coolness."
"I can not help it. I am but the echo of fate."
Gilbert hung his head.
"Do you recall what I told you when I warned you of the fate of Marquis Favras?"
The physician started; strong in facing most men, he felt weak as a child before this mysterious character.
"I told you," went on the enigma, "that if the king had a grain of common sense, which I hoped he had not, he would exercise the wish for self-preservation to flee."
"He did so."
"Yes; but I meant while it was in good time; it was, you know, too late when he went. I added, you may remember, that if he and the queen and the nobles remained, I would bring on the Revolution."
"You are right again, for the Revolution rules," said Gilbert, with a sigh.
"Not completely, but it is getting on. Do you further recall that I showed you an instrument invented by a friend of mine, Doctor Guillotin? Well, that beheading machine, which I exhibited in a drinking-glass to the future queen at Taverney Manor, you will remember, though you were but a boy at the time—no higher than that—yet already courting Nicole—the same Nicole whose husband, Beausire, by the way, is being hung at the present speaking—not before he deserved it! Well, that machine is hard at work."