"What means this intrusion, and at such a moment?" exclaimed the Queen-mother.
"Perrotte!" stammered Charles. "Ah! thou art come at last to console and to forgive me."
Catherine clenched her teeth tightly together with rage; but she no longer attempted to oppose the entrance of the old woman.
The old Huguenot nurse advanced with solemn step into the room, and with a stern and troubled brow; but, on a sudden, a host of recollections seemed to crowd upon her mind at the sight of that emaciated form, and, hurrying to the side of the king, she flung herself down upon the couch and sobbed bitterly.
"Perrotte—my darling old Perrotte!" sobbed forth the dying king. "Art thou come then at last to thy poor nursling? Thou wast a mother to me, and yet thou couldst desert thy poor boy; but he deserved his lot. Perrotte! Perrotte! Thou knowest not what I have suffered since thou hast left me."
"My son," said Catherine, advancing, "is this a moment to bestow your tenderness upon a miserable woman like this? Greet her if you will, but bid her leave us."
"She was a mother to me—she"——continued Charles unheeding her, and, drawing forth his emaciated hand from beneath the coverlid, he held it forth towards the old woman, who lay stretched across his feet.
"Charlot," said the old woman, raising up her head with a haggard look, "they told me that thou wast dying; and I forgot all—all that thou hast done of evil—to see thee once more—to hear the words of repentance from thy own lips—to console and guide. They would have opposed my coming. They had placed guards about my door; but my Jocelyne, my grandchild, found means to lure them from their post, and I escaped them. I had promised her—what had I promised her? Oh, my poor Charlot! my brain wanders strangely at times. No matter. Here, in your palace of the Louvre, too, they would have shut the doors to me; but they knew you loved me, Charlot, and they dared not refuse my supplications. Oh my boy, my boy, that I should see you thus!"
"Perrotte! hast thou forgiven me?" said the king with a violent effort, for his breath was now fast failing him. His mother watched the scene with folded arms and haughty mien. Each ebbing of the breath brought her nearer to her much-desired power.
"Hast thou forgiven me?" sobbed the king.