“Has the Emperor departed already?” Francis eagerly asks her.
“Yes, my brother; pressing business, he says, calls him back to Toledo,” replies Marguerite bitterly, speaking very slowly.
“What! gone so soon, before giving me an opportunity of discussing with him the terms of my freedom. Surely, my sister, this is strange,” says Francis, turning eagerly towards the Duchess, and then sinking back pale and exhausted on his pillows.
Marguerite seats herself beside him, takes his hand tenderly within both her own, and gazes at him in silence.
“But, my sister, did my brother, the Emperor, say nothing to you of his speedy return?”
“Nothing,” answers Marguerite, drily.
“Yet he assured me, with his own lips, that I was already free, and that the conditions of release would be prepared immediately.”
“Dear brother,” says the Duchess, “has your imprisonment at Madrid, and the conduct of the Emperor to you this long time past, inclined you to believe what he says?”
“I, a king myself, should be grieved to doubt a brother sovereign’s word.”
“Francis,” says Marguerite, speaking with great earnestness and fixing her eyes on him, “what you say convinces me that you are weakened by illness. Your naturally acute intellect is dulled by the confusion of recent delirium. If you were in full possession of your senses you would not speak as you do. My brother, take heed of my words—you will never be free.”