"If he is then in condition to hear what you have to say, and do what you wish, I will interpose no further obstacle."
The cardinal was perforce contented with this promise. He returned to his seat at the table, and Mary to her prie-Dieu,—he waiting, and she hoping.
The slow hours of that night of watching dragged themselves along, and François II. did not awake. The promise of Ambroise Paré was not a vain one: not for many nights had the king known such long and peaceful slumber.
From time to time he made a slight movement or uttered a feeble moan; sometimes he pronounced a word or a name, generally Mary's. But he would relapse at once into his deep sleep; and the cardinal, who did not once fail to rise in haste at the least sound, would return dejectedly to his seat.
He crumpled in his hand uneasily the useless, fatal decree, which without the king's signature might well serve for his own death-warrant.
He watched the torches gradually burn out or grow pale, as the cold December dawn whitened the windows.
At last, as eight o'clock struck, the king moved, then opened his eyes, and called, "Mary! are you there, Mary?"
"Always at your side," replied the queen.
Charles de Lorraine rushed forward with the paper in his hand. Perhaps there was time even yet; a scaffold is soon erected.
But at that instant Catherine de Médicis re-entered the royal apartments by the door leading to her own.