. And he hated illness. He regarded it with suspicion,
as a weakness not for a strong man.

The drowsy girl in her chair at the Gare Maritime regarded him curiously
and with interest. Many women turned to look after Henri, but he did
not know this. Had he known it he would have regarded it much as he
did illness.

The stupid boy was not round. The girl herself took the key and led the
way down the long corridor upstairs to a room. Henri stumbled in and
fell across the bed. He was almost immediately asleep.

Late in the afternoon he wakened. Strange that Jean had not come. He
got up and bathed his face. His right arm was very stiff now, and pains
ran from the old wound in his chest down to the fingers of his hand. He
tried to exercise to limber it, and grew almost weak with pain.

At six o'clock, when Jean had not come, Henri resorted to ways that he
knew of and secured a car. He had had some coffee by that time, and he
felt much better--so well indeed that he sang under his breath a
strange rambling song that sounded rather like Rene's rendering of
Tipperary. The driver looked at him curiously every now and then.

It was ten o'clock when they reached La Panne. Henri went at once to
the villa set high on a sand dune where the King's secretary lived. The
house was dark, but in the library at the rear there was a light. He
stumbled along the paths beside the house, and reached at last, after
interminable miles, when the path sometimes came up almost to his eyes
and again fell away so that it seemed to drop from under his feet--at
last he reached the long French doors, with their drawn curtains. He
opened the door suddenly and thereby surprised the secretary, who was a
most dignified and rather nervous gentleman, into laying his hand on a
heavy inkwell.

"I wish to see the King," said Henri in a loud tone. Because at that
moment the secretary, lamp and inkwell and all, retired suddenly to a
very great distance, as if one had viewed them through the reverse end
of an opera glass.

The secretary knew Henri. He, too, eyed him curiously.

"The King has retired, monsieur."

"I think," said Henri in a dangerous tone, "that he will see me."

To tell the truth, the secretary rather thought so too. There was a
strange rumor going round, to the effect that the boy had followed a
woman to England at a critical time. Which would have been a pity, the
secretary thought. There were so many women, and so few men like Henri.