My pessimism evidently angered her; she had looked for me to support His Majesty in this amiable humour.
"Well," said she, rising abruptly, "it is easy to put the matter to the proof. Kyra should not leave her room, but His Majesty may go there if he will. He shall then tell me if it were a guess or no. Do you desire that, sire?"
I could see that the Emperor was greatly pleased; he rose at once and waited for her to show him the way. In that brief interval I stepped to his side and begged to be permitted to follow him.
"A whim, if you like, sire. Perhaps I am also a prophet," said I, and we exchanged a glance I shall never forget.
The Emperor knew that he was in peril, then. Did he also know the nature of it? If so, he were wiser than I, who followed him merely upon an impulse for which I could not account.
V
We mounted a wide flight of stairs and stood for an instant before a great carved door at the head of them. The house was very silent, and the lackeys had disappeared. I could hear the distant sounds in the village and from the high road the rumble of cannon and the blare of bugles. But these were fitful and easily to be explained. What I did not like was the uncanny silence in the dwelling itself. We entered a great ante-room on the first floor, and from that passed to a little bedroom such as a young girl might have occupied. It was empty, but madame knocked at the door which led from it, and, receiving no immediate answer, we all sat down and waited in the darkness.
"The child sleeps," said the Emperor.
The old woman muttered something I could not distinguish.
"Of what nature is her illness?" His Majesty asked next.