that he would not be detained a minute.

"Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this back to Lord
----, and say that I shall be with him in an hour."

"No other message?--he seemed to expect one."

"I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my message is not; beg
him to see Mr. ---- before we meet--he will understand--all rests upon
that interview."

Egerton then, extending the letter, resumed gravely, "Of course you will
not mention to any one that Dr. F. was with me; the health of public men
is not to be suspected. Hum--were you in your own room or the
ante-room?"

"The ante-room, sir."

Egerton's brow contracted slightly.

"And Mr. Levy was there, eh?"

"Yes--the Baron."

"Baron! true. Come to plague me about the Mexican loan, I suppose. I
will keep you no longer."

Randal, much meditating, left the house, and re-entered his hack cab.
The Baron was admitted to the statesman's presence.

CHAPTER XIV.

Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position
exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy
entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness
of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was
different. It was as if the statesman--the man of business--had
vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler, who, nodding
languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a
year?"

"The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last
election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer."

"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow."
And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though
his lip curled.

"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the
curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile
bear L5000 more."

"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell."

"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley
Egerton is done up--his property is for sale.'"

"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may
be yet!"

"Be yet! How?"

Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors--thick and
impervious as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that,
with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of
three nations, that might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We
would go sh