Chapter Forty One.
A visitor for a patient.
The time up to the closing of the chamber door had been one of wild excitement. There was the disguise, and then the scene of preparing Francis for another flight, his helplessness, and the calm, unresisting way in which he had yielded himself to Leoni’s hands.
Then came the departure, the farewell of Leoni, whom at times he seemed to shrink from with dislike, almost with dread, but only to feel himself won back again, attracted by the doctor’s manner and his manifest liking for his young companion.
Then there was the closing of the door, which seemed to cut the lad off from his friends and leave him, as he threw himself wearily into the bed to lie there alone in the darkness, face to face with a horror which chilled him through and through.
For in his chivalrous excitement which thrilled him with a feeling that he was about to do a most gallant thing in the service of his King, he seemed to have no time to think; but now in the silence and gloom of that solitary inner room, there was time for thought, time for his feelings to be harrowed by the knowledge of what was to come, and as he lay there he began to picture to himself how it would all be.
How soon he knew not, but before long some one would come, miss the King’s attendants, inquiry would be made, and possibly the supposed Comte, lying wounded in the bed, would be sharply questioned as to the whereabouts of his doctor and gentlemen.
“What shall I do?” thought Denis. “I must keep up the semblance of being the King. I am supposed to be very ill, and I can pretend to be insensible. That will all gain time if I refuse to speak; and those who come will never for a moment think that the King’s attendants have left him helpless here—far less fancy that they have escaped.
“But have they escaped?” thought the lad; and in his excitement the perspiration broke out upon his brow, as he lay wondering whether they had found the private passage unfastened and won their way through to the gardens, so as to pass unnoticed along the alleys and down to the river steps and boat.