iful?" repeated Breitmann. "Why that?" calmly.

M. Ferraud repressed the admiration in his eyes. It was a singular
duel. "When we see a madman rushing blindly over a precipice it is a
human instinct to reach out a hand to save him."

"But how do you know he is rushing blindly?" Breitmann smiled this
question.

Hildegarde sent him a terrified glance. But for the stiff back of her
chair she must have fallen.

M. Ferraud demolished an olive before he answered the question. "He
has allied himself with some of the noblest houses in France; that is
to say, with the most heartless spendthrifts in Europe. Napoleon IV?
They are laughing behind his back this very minute. They are making a
cat's-paw of his really magnificent fight for their own ignoble ends,
the Orleanist party. To wreak petty vengeance on France, for which
none of them has any love; to embroil the government and the army that
they may tell of it in the boudoirs. This is the aim they have in
view. What is it to them that they break a strong man's heart? What
is it to them if he be given over to perpetual imprisonment? Did a
Bourbon ever love France as a country? Has not France always
represented to them a purse into which they might thrust their
dishonest hands to pay for their base pleasures? Oh, beware of the
conspirator whose sole portion in life is that of pleasure! I wish
that I could see this young man and tell him all I know. If I could
only warn him."

Breitmann brushed his sleeve. "I am really disappointed in your
climax, Mr. Ferraud."

"I said nothing about a climax," returned M. Ferraud. "That has yet to
be enacted."

"Ah!"

"A descendant of Napoleon, direct! Poor devil!" The admiral was
thunderstruck. "Why, the very spirit of Napoleon is dead. Nothing
could ever revive it. It would not live even a hundred days."

"Less than that many hours," said M. Ferraud. "He will be arrested the
moment he touches a French port."

"Father," cried Laura, with a burst of generosity which not only warmed
her heart but her cheeks, "why not find this poor, deluded young man
and give him the treasure?"

"What, and ruin him morally as well as politically? No, Laura; with
money he might become a menace."

"On the contrary," put in M. Ferraud; "with money he might be made to
put away his mad dream. But I'm afraid that my story has made you all
gloomy."

"It has made me sad," Laura admitted. "Think of the struggle, the
self-denia