er. "How
your hand trembles! This cannot be like your usual writing."

"Let me confirm it by my seal, then. You'll find it on the table
yonder."

D'Esmonde melted the wax, and stood beside him, while the youth pressed
down the seal.

"Even that," said the Abbe, "might be disputed. There 's some one
passing in the corridor; let him hear you acknowledge it as your act and
hand." And, so saying, he hastened to the door, and made a sign to the
waiter to come in. "Mr. Dalton desires you to witness his signature,"
said he to the man.

"I acknowledge this as mine," said Frank, already half exhausted by the
unaccustomed exertion.

"Your name, there, as witnessing it," whispered D'Esmonde; and the
waiter added his signature.

"Have you hope of success, Abbe?" said Frank, faintly.

"Hope never fails me," replied D'Esmonde, in a voice of bold and
assured tone. "It is the only capital that humble men like myself
possess; but we can draw upon it without limit. The fate of riches is
often ruins, but there is no bankruptcy in hope. Time presses now," said
he, as if suddenly remembering himself; "I must see to this at once.
When may I come again?"

"Whenever you like. I have much to say to you. I cannot tell you now how
strangely you are mixed up in my fancy--it is but fancy, after all--with
several scenes of terrible interest."

"What!--how do you mean?" said D'Esmonde, turning hastily about

"I scarcely know where to begin, or how to separate truth from its
counterfeit Your image is before me, at times and in places where you
could not have been. Ay, even in the very crash and tumult of battle, as
I remember once at Varenna, beside the Lake of Como. I could have sworn
to have seen you cheering on the peasants to the attack."

"What strange tricks imagination will play upon us!" broke in D'Esmonde;
but his voice faltered, and his pale cheek grew paler as he said the
words.

"Then, again, in the Babli Palace at Milan, where I was brought as
a prisoner, I saw you leave the council-chamber arm-in-arm with an
Austrian Archduke. When I say I saw you, I mean as I now see you
here,--more palpable to my eyes than when you sat beside my sick-bed at
Verona."

"Dreams,----dreams," said D'Esmonde. "Such illusions bespeak a mind
broken by sickness. Forget them, Dalton, if you would train your
thoughts to higher uses." And, so saying, in a tone of pride, the Abbe
bowed, and passed out.

As D'Esmonde passed out into the street, C