This shock was so violent for an old
maid accustomed for years to reduce herself by voluntary fasts, that
she trembled in every limb, and horrible pains were in her back. She
turned pale by degrees, and her face,--the changes in which were
difficult to decipher among its wrinkles,--became distorted while her
brother explained to her the malady of which he was the victim, and
the extraordinary situation in which he found himself.
"Louis XI. and I," he said in conclusion, "have just been lying to
each other like two pedlers of coconuts. You understand, my girl, that
if he follows me, he will get the secret of the hiding-place. The king
alone can watch my wanderings at night. I don't feel sure that his
conscience, near as he is to death, can resist thirteen hundred
thousand crowns. We MUST be beforehand with him; we must find the
hidden treasure and send it to Ghent, and you alone--"
Cornelius stopped suddenly, and seemed to be weighing the heart of the
sovereign who had had thoughts of parricide at twenty-two years of
age.
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