He nodded. "Nicholas discharged me this morning," he said, almost in a whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his voice.
"Why?" she asked gently, as she leant over him. "What had you done?"
"Nothing!" he answered with bitterness. "He said clerks were plentiful, and the King or I must starve."
Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King's name thus prostituted and put to base uses, I started forward with a violence which in a moment made my presence known. Felix, confounded by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose hurriedly from his seat, and retreating before me with vivid alarm painted on his countenance, asked with a faltering tongue who I was.
I replied in as soothing a manner as possible, that I was a friend, anxious to assist him. Nevertheless, seeing that I kept my cloak about my face--for I was not willing to be recognized--he continued to look at me with distrust and terror. "What do you want?" he said, raising the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better.
"The answers to one or two questions," I replied firmly. "Answer them truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end." So saying, I drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so strangely. "When did you write this, my friend?" I continued, placing it before him.
He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension and dismay crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried manner he said that he had never seen the paper.
"Come," I rejoined sternly, "look at it again. Let there be no mistake. When did you write that, and why?"
But still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him hard, continued so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his face when I first produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the necessary orders, when something in the sidelong glance I saw him cast at his wife caught my eye and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on this, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the ground of mistake, and gradually withdrawing to the door asked him at the last moment to light me downstairs.
Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder.