especially now that I
understood it was from my lady at Knockowen. Where to find him I knew
not, and to be found with the letter on me might compromise not merely
me but him and his Irish kinsfolk.

All things considered, I decided to read the letter and commit it to
memory, and then destroy it, hoping my good intentions might be excuse
enough for the breach of faith. And, indeed, when that afternoon I
sought a sheltered place in the woods and produced the soiled and
stained letter from my stocking, I was glad I had done what I did.

"Dear Cousin," wrote my lady at Knockowen, "I hear there is a chance of
getting a letter to you by the messenger who is to carry back Lord
Edward's petition on behalf of the poor Marquis Sillery. Your nephew,
Captain Lestrange, told us of his trouble when he was here in the
summer, and gave us to understand there was little to be hoped for. If
Sillery perish, your position in Paris will be painful indeed. I would
fain send you the money you ask for, but Maurice keeps me so low in
funds that I cannot even pay for my own clothes. I trust, however, your
nephew may bring you some relief, as he spoke of going to Paris this
autumn on a secret mission for the English Government. Affairs with us
are very bad, and, indeed, Maurice succeeds so ill in winning the
confidence of either party, loyalist or rebel, that he talks of sending
me and Kit over to you till times are better here. Take the threat for
what it is worth, for I should be as sorry as you would, and I hear
Paris is a dreadful place to be in now. But you know Maurice. Kit is
well, but all our troubles prey on her spirits. I suspect if your
nephew were in Paris, she would be easier reconciled to our threatened
pilgrimage than I. Between ourselves, my dear cousin, as Maurice now
holds all the mortgages for your Irish estates, it would be well to keep
in with him, even if the price be a visit from your affectionate
cousin,--

"Alice Gorman."

"P.S.--I forget if you are still in the Quai Necker, but am told Lord
Edward's messenger will know where to deliver this."

Such was my lady's letter, and you may guess if it did not set the blood
tingling in my veins, and make Paris seem a very different place from
what it was an hour before.

I carefully read and re-read the letter till I had it by heart, and then
as carefully tore it into a thousand pieces and scattered them to the
wind. The one sentence referring to Captain Lest