Chapter Twenty Six.
So does Denis.
It was the very next day that Denis, after his attendance upon Francis, who had gone to join Henry, was alone in the King’s apartments, standing in the deep recess of a casement window, which he had flung open, and was leaning out gazing at the landscape stretching far and wide before him, and giving him a silvery glimpse here and there of the bright glittering river.
He was so lost in admiration of the scene that he did not hear the door open, and was only made conscious of some one being in the room behind him by hearing a low muttering voice say:
“A blind search! A blind search! What shall I do next to bring it to an end?”
Denis made a sharp movement, catching the sleeve of his doublet against the copper fastening which held open the casement; and as he turned a nervous hand suddenly seized him by the shoulder in a painful grasp, for it was as if fingers of steel were pressing into his flesh.
“You, Master Leoni!” he cried, as the clutch was relaxed as quickly as it came. “Yes, my boy,” said the doctor; and the lad shivered slightly as the fierce fire in one of Leoni’s eyes died into a pleasant smile, though the cold fixed stare in the other remained the same as of old.
“I thought I was alone.”