hase of a name; I, underrated, uncomprehended, indebted even for
a hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler like Savarin, ranked
by petty rivals in a grade below themselves,--I now see before me,
suddenly, abruptly presented, the expanding gates into fame and fortune.
Assist me, you!"

"But how?" said Isaura, already forgetting her manuscript; and certainly
Rameau did not refer to that.

"How!" echoed Rameau; "how! But do you not see--or at least, do you not
conjecture--this journal of which Savarin speaks contains my present and
my future? Present independence, opening to fortune and renown. Ay,--and
who shall say? renown beyond that of the mere writer. Behind the gaudy
scaffolding of this rickety Empire, a new social edifice unperceived
arises; and in that edifice the halls of State shall be given to the men
who help obscurely to build it,--to men like me." Here, drawing her
hand into his own, fixing on her the most imploring gaze of his dark
persuasive eyes, and utterly unconscious of bathos in his adjuration, he
added: "Plead for me with your whole mind and heart; use your uttermost
influence with the illustrious writer whose pen can assure the fates of
my journal."

Here the door suddenly opened, and following the servant, who announced
unintelligibly his name, there entered Graham Vane.

CHAPTER X.

The Englishman halted at the threshold. His eye, passing rapidly over
the figure of Savarin reading in the window-niche, rested upon Rameau
and Isaura seated on the same divan, he with her hand clasped in both
his own, and bending his face towards hers so closely that a loose tress
of her hair seemed to touch his forehead.

The Englishman halted, and no revolution which changes the habitudes and
forms of States was ever so sudden as that which passed without a word
in the depths of his unconjectured heart. The heart has no history
which philosophers can recognize. An ordinary political observer,
contemplating the condition of a nation, may very safely tell us what
effects must follow the causes patent to his eyes; but the wisest and
most far-seeing sage, looking at a man at one o'clock, cannot tell us
what revulsions of his whole being may be made ere the clock strike two.

As Isaura rose to greet her visitor, Savarin came from the window-niche,
the manuscript in his hand.

"Son of perfidious Albion," said Savarin, gayly, "we feared you had
deserted the French alliance. Welcome back to Paris, and t