-and--to make a long story short!--he joined our band and
traversed the continent with us. And so he was the marquis' ward! It
seems almost incredible!"

"Yes," affirmed Culver; "when General Saint-Prosper, his father, died,
Ernest Saint-Prosper, who was then but a boy, became the marquis' ward
and a member of his household."

"Well, well, how things do come about!" ruminated Barnes. "To think he
should have been the prospective heir, and Constance, the real one!"

"Where is he now?" asked the attorney, thoughtfully.

"He has gone to Mexico; enlisted! But how do you know he--"

"Had expectations? The marquis told me about a quarrel they had had;
he was a staunch imperialist; the young man as firm a republican! What
would be the natural outcome? They parted in bitter anger."

"And then the marquis made him his heir?" exclaimed the manager,
incredulously. "How do you reconcile that?"

The attorney smiled. "Through the oddity of my client! 'Draw up my
will,' said the marquis to me one day, 'leaving all my property to
this republican young dog. That will cut off the distant relatives who
made the sign of the cross behind my back as though I were the evil
one. They expect it all; he expects nothing! It will be a rare joke. I
leave them my affection--and the privilege of having masses said for
my soul.' The marquis was always of a satirical temperament."

"So it seems," commented the manager. "But he changed his mind and his
will again?"

"After he met Miss Carew."

"Met me!" exclaimed Constance, aroused from a maze of reflection.

"Near the cathedral! He walked and talked with you."

"That poor old man--"

"And then came here, acknowledged you as his daughter, and drew up the
final document."

"That accounts for a call I had from him!" cried Barnes, telling the
story of the marquis' visit. "Strange, I did not suspect something of
the truth at the time," he concluded, "for his manner was certainly
unusual."

A perplexed light shone in the girl's eyes; she clasped and unclasped
her hands quickly, turning to the lawyer.

"Their quarrel was only a political difference?" she asked at length.

"Yes," said the other, slowly. "Saint-Prosper refused to support the
fugitive king. Throughout the parliamentary government, the
restoration under Louis XVIII, and the reign of King Charles X, the
marquis had ever a devout faith in the divine right of monarchs. He
annulled his marriage in England with your mother to marr