aking a
sign for the turnkey to withdraw, took his seat at my bedside.

'Don't get up, monsieur; you look ill and weak, so pray let me not
disturb you,' said he, in a voice of kindly meaning.

'I'm not ill,' said I, with an effort--but my hollow utterance and
my sunken cheeks contradicted my words; 'but I have been sleeping; I
usually doze at this hour.'

'The best thing a man can do in prison, I suppose,' said he, smiling
good-naturedly.

'No, not the best,' said I, catching up his words too literally. 'I
used to write the whole day long, till they carried away my paper and my
pens.'

'It is just of that very thing I have come to speak, sir,' resumed he.
'You intended that memoir for publication?'

'No; never.'

'Then for private perusal among a circle of friends?'

'Just as little. I scarcely know three people in the world who would
acknowledge that title.'

'You had an object, however, in composing it?'

'Yes; to occupy thought; to save me from--from----'

I hesitated, for I was ashamed of the confession that nearly burst from
me, and, after a pause, I said, 'from being such as I now am!'

'You wrote it for yourself alone, then?'

'Yes.'

'Unprompted; without any suggestion from another?'

'Is it here,' said I, looking around my cell, 'is it here that I should
be likely to find a fellow-labourer?'

'No; but I mean to ask, were the sentiments your own, without any
external influence, or any persuasions from others?'

'Quite my own.'

'And the narrative is true?'

'Strictly so, I believe.'

'Even to your meeting with the Due d'Enghien. It was purely accidental?'

'That is, I never knew him to be the duke till the moment of his
arrest.'

'Just so; you thought he was merely a Royalist noble. Then, why did you
not address a memoir to that effect to the Minister?'

'I thought it would be useless; when they made so little of a Conde,
what right had I to suppose they would think much about me?'

'If he could have proved his innocence----' He stopped, and then in an
altered voice said--'But as to this memoir; you assume considerable airs
of military knowledge in it, and many of the opinions smack of heads
older than yours.'

'They are, I repeat, my own altogether; as to their presumption, I have
already told you they were intended solely for my own eye.'

'So that you are not a Royalist?'

'No,'

'Never were one?'

'Never.'

'In what way would you employ yourself if set at liberty to-