"Has not your eminence observed, that during the last month I have changed my remedies ten times?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I have spent fifty thousand crowns in purchasing the secrets of all these fellows: the list is exhausted, and so is my purse. You are not cured: and, but for my art, you would be dead."
"That ends it!" murmured the cardinal; "that ends it." And he threw a melancholy look upon the riches which surrounded him. "And must I quit all that?" sighed he. "I am dying, Guenaud! I am dying!"
"Oh! not yet, my lord," said the physician.
Mazarin seized his hand. "In what time?" asked he, fixing his two large eyes upon the impassible countenance of the physician.
"My lord, we never tell that."
"To ordinary men, perhaps not;--but to me--to me, whose every minute is worth a treasure. Tell me, Guenaud, tell me!"
"No, no, my lord."
"I insist upon it, I tell you. Oh! give me a month, and for every one of those thirty days I will pay you a hundred thousand crowns."
"My lord," replied Guenaud, in a firm voice, "it is God who can give you days of grace, and not I. God only allows you a fortnight."
The cardinal breathed a painful sigh, and sank back down upon his pillow, murmuring, "Thank you, Guenaud, thank you!"
The physician was about to depart; the dying man, raising himself up: "Silence!" said he, with flaming eyes, "silence!"
"My lord, I have known this secret two months; you see that I have kept it faithfully."
"Go, Guenaud; I will take care of your fortunes; go, and tell Brienne to send me a clerk called M. Colbert. Go!"