uty, I hope, but our
orders don't run as far as that."

"Rupert!" cried Madeleine, piteously turning a dark gaze of anguish at
him--it seemed as if she were going to faint.

He hastened up to her, shouldering the clumsy form of Mr. Augustus
Hobson unceremoniously out of the way: the fellow had done his work
for the time being, and this last piece of it so efficaciously indeed
that his present employer felt, if not remorse, at least a certain
pity stir within him at the stricken hopelessness of the girl's
aspect. He passed his arm round her waist as she shivered and swayed.
"Lean on me," he said, his fine eyes troubled with an unwonted
softness and anxiety.

"Rupert," she whispered, clutching at his sleeve, eagerly fixing him
with a look eloquent of unconscious pleading, "all these things
this--this man talks of are things which are brought into England--are
they not? I know that--_he_ was bringing nothing into the country,
but he was going to another country upon some important trust, the
nature of which he had promised not to reveal. Therefore he cannot be
cheating the King, if that is smuggling--Oh Rupert, is there not some
grievous mistake?"

"My poor child," said Rupert, holding her close and tenderly, and
speaking with a gentle gravity in which there was this time less
hypocrisy, "there is one thing which is smuggled out of England, and
it is as dishonest and illegal work as the other, the most daring and
dangerous smuggling of all in fact; one in which none but a desperate
man would engage--that of gold."

"Yes, gold," exclaimed the girl sharply, withdrawing herself from her
cousin's arms, while a ray of intelligence and hope lit up her face.
"Gold for the French King's service."

Rupert betrayed no emotion; he drew from the inner pocket of his coat
a crushed news-sheet.

"Deceived there, as well as everywhere else, poor little cousin," he
said. "And did the scoundrel say so? Nay, he is a damnable scoundrel
who could betray your trustfulness to your own sweet face. Gold
indeed--but not for the King--gold for the usurper, for the tyrant who
was supplied already, no doubt, by the same or similar traitor hands
with enough to enable him to escape from the island where he was so
justly imprisoned. See here, Madeleine, Bonaparte is actually landed
in France: it has all been managed with the most devilish ingenuity
and takes the whole world by surprise. And your lover, doubtless, is
engaged upon bringing him fr