“Good God!” cries the monk, clasping his hands, “if I do not see him to-night, I shall never see him.”
“And why not, I pray?” asks the Comte d’Auvergne. “Come and sup with my people to-night; and to-morrow, as early as you please, I will take you to his Majesty. Follow me.”
“I wash my hands of all the evil this delay will cause,” exclaims the monk, following him reluctantly. “On your head be it, monseigneur.” They quitted the hall together.
All this time Osman had stood near watching them. He had not lost a syllable of the conversation. “Did I not say that there was blood?” he mutters half aloud; “is it not true? The knowledge of it came to me in a vision. Now I have read it also in the stars. The blood of the King is on that monk. His robes are spotted with it. In his hand, while he spoke, there was a dagger. None else beheld it; but I saw it, and the point streamed with the King’s life-blood. Woe! woe! woe! Would that I could
