"Can it be that our intentions were thus misrepresented to Master Paré?" the Cardinal de Lorraine hastily interposed. "Yet my brother and myself have sent to him two or three times, and have been always told of his obstinate refusal to come, and his extraordinary suspicions. We believed those whom we sent to seek him to be most trustworthy!"
"But were they really so, Monseigneur?" asked Gabriel. "Master Paré thinks otherwise, now that I have told him your real sentiments toward him, and the queen's kind words. He is convinced that, unknown to you, persistent efforts have been made for some guilty purpose to keep him from the king's bedside."
"It must be so," returned Charles de Lorraine; "I recognize the queen-mother's hand in this," he muttered, "for she is deeply interested that her son should not be saved. But will she thus corrupt all those upon whose devotion we rely? This is a counterpart of the appointment of her friend L'Hôpital! How she does make sport of us!"
Mary Stuart, meanwhile, leaving the cardinal to his reflections upon what had taken place, and his anxiety as to what was to come, was saying to Gabriel,—
"Monsieur Paré did finally come with you, did he not?"
"At my first request," replied the young count.
"And he is here?"
"Awaiting only your gracious permission to enter, Madame."
"Pray let him come in at once!" cried Mary Stuart.
Gabriel de Montgommery went for a moment to the door at which he had entered, and returned with the surgeon.