daft?' cried James, in great anger. 'If Madame of
Hainault were so lost to decorum as to hatch such schemes at such a
moment, I trow you are neither puppet nor fool in her hands for her to do
what she will with. I'll have no more fooling!'

Malcolm could only obey.

In the brief space while the horses were preparing, and he had to equip
and take food, he sped in search of Dr. Bennet, hoping, he knew not what,
from his interference, or trusting, at any rate, to explain his own
sudden absence.

But, looking into the chapel, he recognized the chaplain as one of the
leading priests in one of the lengthiest of masses, which was just
commencing. It was impossible to wait for the conclusion. He could but
kneel down, find himself too much hurried and confused to recollect any
prayer, then dash back again to don his riding-gear, before King James
should miss him, and be angered again.

'Unabsolved--unvowed!' he thought. 'Sent off thither against my will.
Whatever may fall out, it is no fault of mine!'

CHAPTER XIV: THE TROTH FLIGHT

Trembling and awed, the ladies waited at Paris. It was well known how
the King's illness must end. No one, save the Queen, professed to
entertain any hope of his amendment; but Catherine appeared to be too
lethargic to allow herself to be roused to any understanding of his
danger; and as to the personal womanly tendance of wife to suffering
husband, she seemed to have no notion of it. Her mother had never been
supposed to take the slightest care of King Charles; and Catherine, after
her example, regarded the care either of husband or child as no more
required of a royal lady than of a queen bee.

The little Lady Montagu, as Alice was now to be called, who had been
scheming that her Richard should be wounded just enough to learn to call
her his good little nurse-tender, was dreadfully scandalized, as indeed
were wives of more experience, when they found all their endeavours to
make their mistress understand how ill the King really was, and how much
he wished for her, fall upon uncomprehending ears, and at last were
desired by her mother Isabeau not to torment the poor Queen, or they
would make her ill.

'Make her ill! I wish I could!' muttered Lady Warwick, as she left the
presence-chamber; 'but it is like my little Nan telling her apple-stock
baby that all her kin were burnt alive in one castle. She heeds as
much!'

But when at late evening Sir Lewis Robsart rode up to th