me. Very soon after you saved me at Venice, I knew all about
you; who you were, and what you were planning,--ay, deep as you thought
yourself, I read every scheme in you, and opened every letter you wrote
or received. You don't believe me. Shall I give you a proof? Did you
accept eight bills for money Morlache the Jew sent you, from Florence,
in March last? Did Cardinal Antinori write to say that the Bull that
named you cardinal must have your birth set forth as noble? Did the
Austrian Field-Marshal send you the cross of St. Joseph, and did you not
return it, as to wear it would unmask you to the Italians?"

"What if all this were true?" said D'Esmonde, proudly. "Is it to one
like you I am to render account for my actions? What is it to you if--"

"What is it to _me?_" cried the other, fiercely,----"what is it to me?
Isn't it everything? Isn't it what brought me here, and what in three
days more will bring me to the gallows? I tell you again, I saw what you
were bent on, and I knew you 'd succeed,--ay, that I did. If it was good
blood you wanted to be a cardinal, I was the only one could help you."

"You knew the secret of my birth, then?" cried D'Esmonde, in deep
earnestness. "You could prove my descent from the Godfreys?"

"No! but I could destroy the only evidence against it," said the other,
in a deep, guttural voice. "I could tear out of the parish registry the
only leaf that could betray you; and it was for that I came back here;
and it was for that I 'm now here. And I did do it. I broke into the
vestry of the chapel at midnight, and I tore out the page, and I have
it here, in my hand, this minute. There was a copy of this same paper
at the college at Louvain, but I stole that, too; for I went as porter
there, just to get an opportunity to take it,--that one I destroyed."

"But whence this interest in my fortunes?" said D'Esmonde, half proudly,
for he was still slow to believe all that he heard.

"The paper will tell you that," said the other, slowly unfolding it, and
flattening it out on his knee. "This is the certificate of your baptism!
Wait--stop a minute," cried he, catching D'Esmonde's arm, as, in his
impatience, he tried to seize the paper. "This piece of paper is the
proof of who you are, and, moreover, the only proof that will soon exist
to show it."

"Give it to me--let me see it!" cried D'Esmonde, eagerly. "Why have you
withheld till this time what might have spared me anxious days and weary
nigh