“I cannot quit it, Sire,” she said, firmly.
“Not until thou hast got me from my bed and set me on my legs,” her husband said, weakly. “Then, Patsy woman, thou must do as the King bids thee. Come, now, I am about to rise. Give me your shoulder.”
The wife stirred not a finger, although the man in the bed, gasping for breath and the purple veins swelling in his forehead, contrived to raise himself on his two hands. But he could get no further; he fell back in distress upon his pillows.
“You are much too weak to quit your couch, my dear Farnham,” said Charles. “Even if you could be got upon your legs, you would never be able to keep them. But I think we can contrive it otherwise. We must support you in your present place. Madam will lend her aid, I trust.”
The woman, however, would not heed the words of the King. She hung back, convulsed with terror. Charles, laughing a little still, prepared to do the office himself. He took young Lord Farnham in his arms, lifted him up among the sheets into a sitting posture, and made a wall of his pillows to keep him in it. The lad’s skin seemed to burn the arms of his monarch like a live coal; his whole frame shook and quivered; he was racked with a hectic weakness he was striving to control. The King, having at last fixed him deftly thus, turned triumphantly towards the lady.
“Confess, madam,” he said, “that you would not think, to look at us, that we had such a cunning in attendance on the sick. And now we must ask you to leave us for a minute. Only for a minute, madam; we will not deny you longer, we do promise you.”
“No, Sire,” she answered, firmly, “I cannot go; I will not go. Harry, art thou mad?”
“I think I am,” said the young man, sitting up among the pillows, in a voice so small and querulous it sounded like a child’s. “I think I am.”
“I will not stand by and see a murder done,” said the woman, with a sudden resolution. “Sire, my poor lad is unhinged; he is not sane. I beseech you not to heed him.”
“Sane or mad,” said the King, “whenever our family can make a requital to his in the smallest particular, Charles Stuart shall not withhold it. The man hath set his heart upon it; he shall have all that he desires.”