Where I had looked, to see courtiers assembling to meet their sovereign and assure him of their fidelity, I found only gloomy faces, watchful eyes, and mouths ominously closed.

An air of constraint and foreboding rested on all.

A single footstep sounded hollowly.

The long corridors, which had so lately rung with laughter and the rattle of dice, seemed already devoted to the silence, and desolation which awaited them when the Court should depart.

Where any spoke I caught the name of Guise; and I could have fancied that his mighty shadow lay upon the place and cursed it.
Entering the chamber, I found matters little better there.