“Nothing!” she answered quickly—“Only a presentiment of evil! That funeral-ship has made me sad!”
Sir Roger said nothing for the moment. He was too preoccupied with his own forebodings to give much heed to hers. He walked to the window.
“There will be a storm to-night!” he said. “Look at those great clouds! They are big with thunder and with rain!”
“Yes!” murmured Teresa—“There will be a storm—Madam!”
She turned with a cry to feel the Queen’s grip on her shoulder—to see the Queen, white as marble, with blazing eyes, possessed by a very frenzy of grief and terror. A tragic picture of despairing Majesty, she confronted the startled De Launay with an open paper in her hand.
“Where is the King?” she demanded, in accents that quivered with fear and passion. “From you, Sir Roger de Launay, must come the answer! To you, his friend and servant, I trusted his safety! And of you I ask again—Where is the King?”
Stupefied and stunned, Sir Roger stared helplessly at this enraged splendour of womanhood, this embodied wrath of royalty.
“Madam!” he stammered,—“I know nothing—save that the King has been sorely stricken by a great sorrow—”
She looked at him with flashing eyes.
“Sorrow for what?—for whom?”