orth the hearing. Are you satisfied?"

"Quite so, as regards me; by no means so, however, as to your fate.
Short as our intimacy has been, I have seen enough of you to know
that qualities like yours should not be wasted in a mad or hopeless
enterprise."

"Who told you it was either?" interrupted he, impetuously. "Who dares to
say that the rule of a Usurper is more firmly placed than the prestige
of a Monarchy that goes back to Hugues Capet? Come, come! I will not
discuss these questions with you, nor have I temper now left to do so.
Give me the countersign to pass the sentry, and let us part."

"Not in anger, though, De Beauvais."

"Not in friendship, sir," replied he, proudly, as he waved back, with
his, my proffered hand. "Adieu!" said he, in a softened tone, as he
moved from the room; and then, turning quickly round, he added, "We may
meet again hereafter, and scarcely can do so on equal terms. If fortune
stand by you I must be a beggar; should I win, yours is indeed a sorry
lot. When that time comes, let him with whom the world goes best not
forget the other. Good-by!" And with that he turned away, and left the
house.

I watched him as he strode along the silent alleys, careless and free as
though he had no cause for fear, till he disappeared in the dark wood:
and then I sat down at the door to think over our interview. Never had
my heart felt more depressed. My own weakness in having ever admitted
the intimacy of men whose dangerous designs were apparent had totally
undermined the strong principle of rectitude I should have relied upon
in such a trial, and on which I could have thrown myself for support.
What had I to guide me after all, save my devotion to the cause of
Bonaparte himself? The prejudices of education, the leanings of family
opinion, the inclinations of friends, exist not for the alien. He has to
choose his allegiance; it is not born with him. His loyalty is not the
growth of a hundred different sympathies, that have twined round his
heart in childhood and grown with him to manhood; speaking of home and
infancy, of his own native streams and mountains, of a land that was his
father's. No! with him it is not a conviction,--it is but a feeling.

Such was the substance of my reverie; and as I arose and strolled out
into the park, it was with a deeply-uttered vow to be true to him and
his fortunes whose name first lit the spark of ambition in my heart, and
through weal or woe to devote myself to hi