rrying on his deception successfully. Though his parents
were not wealthy, he had received a good education. He was so notorious
for his gentleman-like manners among the villainous associates of his
crimes and excesses, that they nicknamed him "the Prince." All his early
life had been passed in the neighborhood of the Chateau Franval. He knew
what were the circumstances which had induced the baron to leave it. He
had been in the country to which the baron had emigrated. He was able
to refer familiarly to persons and localities, at home and abroad,
with which the baron was sure to be acquainted. And, lastly, he had an
expatriation of fifteen years to plead for him as his all-sufficient
excuse, if he made any slight mistakes before the baron's sisters,
in his assumed character of their long-absent brother. It will be, of
course, hardly necessary for me to tell you, in relation to this part
of the subject, that the true Franval was immediately and honorably
reinstated in the family rights of which the impostor had succeeded for
a time in depriving him.

According to Monbrun's own account, he had married poor Rosamond purely
for love; and the probabilities certainly are, that the pretty, innocent
English girl had really struck the villain's fancy for the time; and
that the easy, quiet life he was leading at the Grange pleased him, by
contrast with his perilous and vagabond existence of former days. What
might have happened if he had had time enough to grow wearied of his
ill-fated wife and his English home, it is now useless to inquire. What
really did happen on the morning when he awoke after the flight of Ida
and her sister can be briefly told.

As soon as his eyes opened they rested on the police agent, sitting
quietly by the bedside, with a loaded pistol in his hand. Monbrun knew
immediately that he was discovered; but he never for an instant lost the
self-possession for which he was famous. He said he wished to have five
minutes allowed him to deliberate quietly in bed, whether he should
resist the French authorities on English ground, and so gain time by
obliging the one Government to apply specially to have him delivered up
by the other--or whether he should accept the terms officially offered
to him by the agent, if he quietly allowed himself to be captured.
He chose the latter course--it was suspected, because he wished to
communicate personally with some of his convict associates in France,
whose fraudulent gains