"The very best! Ah, God, my son! my son! The very best? Oh, France! France! Philip, tell me—tell me your news. But is the door shut—shut fast?"
Through a prolonged life Commines never forgot that scene and never answered, never dared to answer, even in the secret of his own mind, the question, What news from Amboise was the very best?
A single shutter had been drawn half aside, and in the semi-obscurity the chalk-grey face of the King showed ghost-like against the vaulted darkness of the curtained bed. The fret of spirit through these ten or twelve days had sapped him, worn him like so many days of consuming fever. With one hand, the elbow propped upon the coverlid, he pushed the draperies aside, the other was fumbling with its finger-tips at his convulsed mouth. In impatience, or that he might breathe the freer, the ribbons which knotted his woollen nightrobe at the throat had been unfastened, leaving the lean, parchment-coloured chest and throat, corded with starting sinews, nakedly open. As he leant aslant, the curtains arching overhead, his eyes roundly open in the shadows of their sockets, he was like a corpse new risen from its tomb and full of horror from the dreams which had dogged its sleep.
"The very best! Tell me everything, Philip. Or, no!" The shaking hand ceased plucking at the lip, and the shrunken arm, bare to the elbow where the gown had slipped, was thrust out, beating the air as if to push aside some terror. "Tell me the one—the essential——God's name, man! can you not understand?"
"The best news possible, Sire." Commines' eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom and no detail escaped him. "The Dauphin is innocent, is loving—loyal."
The King shrank as if he had been struck and the cadaverous face grew yet more ghastly. Shifting uneasily on his elbow he pushed the curtains wide apart, rasping the rings sharply on the rod, and drawing back his hand fumbled anew at his mouth.
"Loving, loyal—living." There was a perceptible pause, and the third word was harsher, drier than the others, and spoken with a jerk as if forced from the throat under compulsion. "You received my letter written two days ago?"
"Yes, Sire, and a second last night. Thank God, with all my heart, it——"
"Let it wait. The messenger of two days ago, has he come back?"
"Not yet. I asked Lessaix."