advise me to do in
this crisis, and what do you propose to do yourself?"

De Mauleon put his hand to his brow, and remained a few moments silent
and thoughtful. At last he looked up with that decided expression of
face which was not the least among his many attributes for influence
over those with whom he came into contact.

"For you, on whom so much of the future depends, my advice is
brief--have nothing to do with the present. All who join this present
mockery of a Government will share the fall that attends it--a fall from
which one or two of their body may possibly recover by casting blame on
their confreres,--you never could. But it is not for you to oppose that
Government with an enemy on its march to Paris. You are not a soldier;
military command is not in your rode. The issue of events is uncertain;
but whatever it be, the men in power cannot conduct a prosperous war nor
obtain an honourable peace. Hereafter you may be the Deus ex machina. No
personage of that rank and with that mission appears till the end of
the play: we are only in the first act. Leave Paris at once, and abstain
from all action."

INCOGNITO (dejectedly).--"I cannot deny the soundness of your advice,
though in accepting it I feel unutterably saddened. Still you, the
calmest and shrewdest observer among my friends, think there is cause
for hope, not despair. Victor, I have more than most men to make life
pleasant, but I would lay down life at this moment with you. You know me
well enough to be sure that I utter no melodramatic fiction when I
say that I love my country as a young man loves the ideal of his
dreams--with my whole mind and heart and soul! and the thought that I
cannot now aid her in the hour of her mortal trial is--is--"

The man's voice broke down, and he turned aside, veiling his face with a
hand that trembled.

DE MAULEON--"Courage--patience! All Frenchmen have the first; set them
an example they much need in the second. I, too, love my country, though
I owe to it little enough, heaven knows. I suppose love of country is
inherent in all who are not Internationalists. They profess only to love
humanity, by which, if they mean anything practical, they mean a rise in
wages."

INCOGNITO (rousing himself, and with a half smile). "Always cynical,
Victor--always belying yourself. But now that you have advised my
course, what will be your own? Accompany me, and wait for better times."

"No, noble friend; our positions are differ