‘And then she went with him?’
The student nodded.
‘Readily? Of her own free-will?’
‘Certainly,’ he answered. ‘It seemed so to me. She tried to prevent him speaking before your mother, but that was all.’
On the impulse of the moment I took a step towards the door; recollecting my position, I turned back with a groan. Almost beside myself, and longing for any vent for my feelings, I caught the lad by the shoulder, where he stood on the hearth, and shook him to and fro.
‘Tell me, man, what am I to do?’ I said between my teeth. ‘Speak! think! invent something!’
But he shook his head.
I let him go with a muttered oath, and sat down on a stool by the bed and took my head between my hands. At that very moment, however, relief came—came from an unexpected quarter. The door opened and the leech entered. He was a skilful man, and, though much employed about the Court, a Huguenot—a fact which had emboldened Simon Fleix to apply to him through the landlord of the ‘Bleeding Heart,’ the secret rendezvous of the Religion in Blois. When he had made his examination he was for leaving, being a grave and silent man, and full of business, but at the door I stopped him.
‘Well, sir?’ I said in a low tone, my hand on his cloak.
‘She has rallied, and may live three days,’ he answered quietly. ‘Four, it may be, and as many more as God wills.’