"Here, du Plessis, sit by the bed. I want to talk with you."
"Will you have light, Sire?"
"No. It disturbs my eyes. Listen to what I shall say. You are here? Yes. Well, then, I am going to die."
"Sire! For God's sake—let me call some—"
"Chut! I want no one. It'll be a comfort to go in peace. I am going to die. I have always feared the thought; but when one really arrives at the time—it is not much. I am not afraid, du Plessis. I wish to express to you my gratitude for having kept the Court and the doctors and the Orléans lot away from me. They are bores. What I would say is this: When I am really gone, there will, of course, be a scandal concerning my sickness and death, having none but you and—her—to attend me. You'll get through it, du Plessis. Parbleu! There is no nation that can withstand your manner. My dear Dauphin—ought to love you. But Anne—Anne! Where will she go? What to do for her? Richelieu, I love her. Yes, truly, as no woman before. Take her, then, under your protection. I leave her to your care. Get her from here safely. Send her for a little to her estates, or one of yours. Say that I command her title to remain to her. But, my friend, do not let her marry. Keep her from that. Par le ciel! If I dreamed that she would—d'Agenois, or that de Mailly, or any other—promise, du Plessis!"
"Your will, always, Sire!"
"More wine, then. Diable! My head is on fire! More wine, and I sleep again."
Richelieu refilled the glass, which his master drained to the last drop. Then he sank back to the pillows, turned restlessly half a dozen times, whistled a bar or two in the darkness, and so dozed again, while the Duke, with a new and very heavy weight upon his heart, returned to the window. The King had frightened him more than he dared confess to himself. Certainly Louis' words had been unmistakably sincere. He believed that he was going to die. The King's fear of danger to his favorite Duchess was well founded, unquestionably. But the King's confidence in Richelieu's ability to rise again in the world, Richelieu himself held in very decided doubt. If matters were come to this pass, it were well to act. When a man's Damocles has actually got to the single-hair state, that man, if there be any way in which to move, does very well to get from under it, though he must leave a companion behind, helpless, in his place. The King must live till morning, must absolutely live till morning, and then—Richelieu would once more prove himself a wise man. He must turn traitor to his personal trust with madame and the King, too, for the sake of the safety of the King, and, therefore, his own. If he regretted the inevitable consequences in the career of la Châteauroux, he was philosopher enough to wave them aside without difficulty. Something one must lose in such a place. It should be as little as possible.
On Friday morning the King awoke to find his three attendants all beside him, and what repast he might take—chocolate, a roll, a jelly—not too well prescribed, waiting. From his manner one could not have told whether or not he recalled that midnight conversation with du Plessis. Certainty he looked ill enough this morning. His flushed face was haggard, his lips cracked, his blue eyes dull, his brain feeble, but half working. Madame looked upon him with a pang of grief and fear. While she smoothed out his bright yellow locks, freed from their wig, and bathed his unpainted face and dry hands with scented water, her sister holding the silver basin, Richelieu disappeared. An hour later, when the room was again still, a fly or two buzzing at the window, Mme. de Lauraguais purfling, Marie Anne beside the drowsy King, the Duke had not yet returned. It was the longest absence that he had made from the bedside, except for sleep. That he was not asleep now, madame knew very well. His bed in the royal suite had been made. He had let himself quite out of these rooms, and was gone—to whom? Whither? And Mme. de Châteauroux, though she trusted Richelieu as she did herself, became, after a little, nervous with anxiety for his return. Presently she moved over to Mme. de Lauraguais, her puppet-shadow.
"Elise, du Plessis is absent still. I am disturbed. Why should he be so long away? Do you think—do you think—"