long one; he determined to be quite
sure of his superior influence over his wife before he trusted her
within reach of her father again.

Mr. and Mrs. Bowmore accompanied Captain Bervie and Miss Bervie on
their way back to England, as far as Boulogne. In that pleasant town the
banished patriot set up his tent. It was a cheaper place to live in than
Paris, and it was conveniently close to England, when he had quite made
up his mind whether to be an exile on the Continent, or to go back to
his own country and be a martyr in prison. In the end, the course of
events settled that question for him. Mr. Bowmore returned to England,
with the return of the Habeas Corpus Act.

The years passed. Percy and Charlotte (judged from the romantic point of
view) became two uninteresting married people. Bervie (always remaining
a bachelor) rose steadily in his profession, through the higher grades
of military rank. Mr. Bowmore, wisely overlooked by a new Government,
sank back again into the obscurity from which shrewd Ministers would
never have assisted him to emerge. The one subject of interest left,
among the persons of this little drama, was now represented by Doctor
Lagarde. Thus far, not a trace had been discovered of the French
physician, who had so strangely associated the visions of his magnetic
sleep with the destinies of the two men who had consulted him.

Steadfastly maintaining his own opinion of the prediction and the
fulfillment, Bervie persisted in believing that he and Lagarde (or
Percy and Lagarde) were yet destined to meet, and resume the unfinished
consultation at the point where it had been broken off. Persons, happy
in the possession of "sound common sense," who declared the prediction
to be skilled guesswork, and the fulfillment manifest coincidence,
ridiculed the idea of finding Doctor Lagarde as closely akin to that
other celebrated idea of finding the needle in the bottle of hay. But
Bervie's obstinacy was proverbial. Nothing shook his confidence in his
own convictions.

More than thirteen years had elapsed since the consultation at the
Doctor's lodgings, when Bervie went to Paris to spend a summer holiday
with his friend, the chaplain at the English embassy. His last words to
Percy and Charlotte when he took his leave were: "Suppose I meet with
Doctor Lagarde?"

It was then the year 1830. Bervie arrived at his friend's rooms on the
24th of July. On the 27th of the month the famous revolution broke out
whi