“Well, no—not exactly that; but I am to post a sentry in the corridor, outside his door.”
“Then the King is afraid that Monsieur Maurice will run away!”
“I don't know—I suppose so,” groaned my father.
I sat silent for a moment, and then burst into a flood of tears.
“Poor Monsieur Maurice!” I cried. “He has coughed so all the Winter; and he was longing for the Spring! We were to have gathered primroses in the woods when the warm days came back again—and—and—and I suppose the King doesn't mean that I am not to speak to him any more!”
My sobs choked me, and I could say no more.
My father took me on his knee, and tried to comfort me.
“Don't cry, my little Gretchen,” he said tenderly; “don't cry! Tears can help neither the prisoner nor thee.”
“But I may go to him all the same, father?” I pleaded.
“By my sword, I don't know,” stammered my father. “If it were a breach of orders ... and yet for a baby like thee ... thou'rt no more than a mouse about the room, after all!”