"You are right, Father, though you do come from Valmy. Monsieur La
Mothe, I am sorry for what I said, and do not forget you are to call me
Charles. Ursula, you have been crying; is that because Charlot spoilt
my mask?"
"No, Charles; but because Monsieur La Mothe must go to Valmy."
"Oh! Valmy?" he said dully. "I am never happy but somehow it is
Valmy, Valmy, Valmy! I think hell must be like Valmy."
"My son, you must not say such things."
"But what if I think them? Am I not to say what I think? And in hell they hate, do they not? Monsieur Villon," he went on as the poet re-entered the room, "they were talking of Valmy as I passed the stair-head. Will you go and see if my father is dead a second time? No! stay where you are, I hear some one coming."
Hastily crossing the room, Charles cowered close to Ursula de Vesc, furtively catching at her skirts as if half ashamed of his fears and yet drawn to the comfort of a strength greater than his own. All his pride of possession and joyousness of childhood were gone, and instead of wholesome laughter the terrors of a crushed spirit looked out of his dull eyes. He was no longer Roland, but the son of Louis of France. Laying her arm about him in the old attitude of protection which had so stirred La Mothe's heart, she held him close to her, the anxiety of her watchfulness no less evident than his own. The darkness of her dread had deepened tenfold. Valmy could bring no good to Amboise, no good to Stephen La Mothe.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE ARREST
There was no long delay. Passing Villon with a single, keen, scrutinizing glance, a man, a stranger to them all, entered, pausing a yard or two within the room. Four or five troopers showed behind him in the doorway, but made no attempt to cross the threshold. All were dusty, travel-stained, and with every sign of having ridden both far and fast. Their leader alone was bareheaded, his sheathed sword caught up in a gauntleted hand.
"In the King's name, Monseigneur," he said, turning to the Dauphin with a salute which halted evenly between respect and contempt. But the Dauphin only shrank closer to Ursula de Vesc and it was La Mothe who answered.