re he lived with credit, till
the death of the head of the firm. After that, I believe the house
ceased business, or broke up. At all events, Raper was thrown on the
world again, and resolved to emigrate. I suppose if Monsieur Geysiger
had lived--"

"Geysiger!--is that the name you said?"

"Ay; Adam Geysiger,--the great house of Geysiger, Mersman, and Dorth, of
Hamburg, the first merchants of that city."

Though he continued to talk on, I heard no more; my thoughts become
confused, and my head felt turning with the intense effort to collect
myself. Geysiger? thought I; the very house where I had been at
Hamburg,--where I had overheard the project of a plan against myself!
Could it be, that through all my disguise of name and condition, that
they knew me? With what increase of terror did this discovery come upon
me! If they have, indeed, recognized me, it may be that some scheme
is laid against my life. I could not tell how or whence this suspicion
came; but, doubtless, some chance word let drop before me in my infancy,
and dormant since in my mind, now rushed forth to my recollection with
all the power of a fact!

I questioned the old man about this Geysiger,--where he had lived, whom
he had married, and so on; but he only knew that his wife had been an
actress. I did not ask for more. The identity was at once established.
I next tried to find out if any relations of friendship or intimacy
had subsisted between the Comtesse and Madame de Geysiger; but, on the
contrary, he told me they had not met nor known each other when she
wrote to him; and her stay after that in Hamburg was very brief. I
wearied him with asking to repeat for me several circumstances of
these strange revelations; nor was it till I saw him fatigued and half
exhausted that I could prevail on myself to cease. I had now loitered
here to the last limit of my time; and, with an affectionate leave of
my kind old master, I left Reichenau to make my way with all speed to
England.

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE ORDEAL

My first care on arriving in England was to resign my post as an "Agent
secret." This was not, however, so easily accomplished as I thought; for
the Royalists had more than once before discovered that those in their
employment had been seduced into the service of their enemies, whose
rewards were greater, and who had a large field of patronage at their
disposal. Unable to prevent these desertions by the inducements of
profit, they had resorte