and Maurice sipped his cognac, the king lay in his bed in the
palace and aimlessly fingered the counterpane. There was now no
beauty in his face. It was furrowed and pale, and an endless
fever burned in the sunken eyes--eyes like coals, which suddenly
flare before they turn to ash.

The archbishop nor the chancellor could see anything in the dim
corners of the royal bed chamber, but he could. It was the
mocking finger of death, and it was leveled at him. Spring had
come, and summer and autumn and winter, and spring again, but he
had not wandered through the green fields, except in dreams, and
the byways he loved knew him no more. Ah, to sit still like a
spectator and to see the world pass by! To be a part of it, and
yet not of it! To see the glory of strength and vigor just
beyond one's grasp, the staffs to lean on crumble to the touch,
and the stars of hope fade away one by one from the firmament of
one's dreams! Here was weariness for which there was no remedy.

Day by day time pressed him on toward the inevitable. No human
hand could stay him. He could think, but he could not act. He
could move, but he could not stand nor walk. And that philosophy
which had in other days sustained him was shattered and
threadbare. He was dead, yet he lived. Fate has so many delicate
ironies.

He had tried to make his people love him, only to acquire their
hate. He had reduced taxation, only to be scorned. He had made
the city beautiful, only to be cursed. A paralytic, the theme of
ribald verse, the butt of wineroom wits, the object of contumely
to his people, his beneficiaries!