vereign. I knew them well, for I saw them near. Their littleness,
their jealousies, their absurd vanity and egregious pretensions, were
all well known to me; but many a time have I felt a sort of contemptuous
scorn of them repelled by reflecting over the heroic and chivalrous
loyalty which bound them to a cause so all but hopeless. If it be asked
why I remained in a career so distasteful to me, and served a cause to
which no sympathy bound me, my answer is, that I followed it with an
object which had engrossed every ambition and every wish of my heart;
and this was to find out "my mother" and Raper. I knew that the secrets
of my birth were known to them, and that with them alone, of all the
world, lay the clew to my family and kindred. While the Count lived, my
mother--I cannot call her by any other name--was fearful of revealing
circumstances to me, of which he would not suffer any mention in his
presence. This barrier was now removed. Besides, I had grown up to
manhood, and had a better pretension to ask for the satisfaction of my
curiosity.

This was, then, the stimulus that supported me in many a long and
weary journey; this the hope that sustained me through every reverse of
fortune, and through what is still harder to bear,--the solitude of my
lonely, friendless lot. By degrees, however, it began to fail within
me; frequent disappointment at last so chilled my ardor that I almost
determined to abandon the pursuit forever, and with it a career which I
detested. The slightest accident that foreshadowed a prospect of success
was still enough to make me change my resolve; and thus I lived on,
vacillating now to this side, now to that, and enduring the protracted
tortures of expectation.

It was in one of these moments, when despair was in the ascendant, that
I received an order to set out for Reichenau and obtain certain papers
which had been left there in the keeping of Monsieur Jost, the property
of a certain person whose initial was the letter C. I was given to
understand that the documents were of great importance, and the mission
one to be executed with promptitude. I had almost decided on abandoning
this pursuit. The very note in which I should communicate my resignation
was begun on the table, when the Abbe, who generally was the bearer of
my instructions, came to convey this order. He was in a mood of unusual
gayety and frankness; and after rallying me on my depression, and
jestingly pointing out the great re