nt. xv. 3.

(By the prow was the fatal lady ordained to be the guide.)

The Italian did not overrate that craft of simulation proverbial with
her country and her sex. Not a word, not a look, that day revealed to
Glyndon the deadly change that had converted devotion into hate. He
himself, indeed, absorbed in his own schemes, and in reflections on his
own strange destiny, was no nice observer. But her manner, milder
and more subdued than usual, produced a softening effect upon his
meditations towards the evening; and he then began to converse with her
on the certain hope of escape, and on the future that would await them
in less unhallowed lands.

"And thy fair friend," said Fillide, with an averted eye and a false
smile, "who was to be our companion?--thou hast resigned her, Nicot
tells me, in favour of one in whom he is interested. Is it so?"

"He told thee this!" returned Glyndon, evasively. "Well! does the change
content thee?"

"Traitor!" muttered Fillide; and she rose suddenly, approached him,
parted the long hair from his forehead caressingly, and pressed her lips
convulsively on his brow.

"This were too fair a head for the doomsman," said she, with a slight
laugh, and, turning away, appeared occupied in preparations for their
departure.

The next morning, when he rose, Glyndon did not see the Italian; she was
absent from the house when he left it. It was necessary that he should
once more visit C-- before his final Departure, not only to arrange for
Nicot's participation in the flight, but lest any suspicion should have
arisen to thwart or endanger the plan he had adopted. C--, though not
one of the immediate coterie of Robespierre, and indeed secretly hostile
to him, had possessed the art of keeping well with each faction as
it rose to power. Sprung from the dregs of the populace, he had,
nevertheless, the grace and vivacity so often found impartially amongst
every class in France. He had contrived to enrich himself--none knew
how--in the course of his rapid career. He became, indeed, ultimately
one of the wealthiest proprietors of Paris, and at that time kept a
splendid and hospitable mansion. He was one of those whom, from various
reasons, Robespierre deigned to favour; and he had often saved the
proscribed and suspected, by procuring them passports under disguised
names, and advising their method of escape. But C-- was a man who took
this trouble only for the rich. "The incorruptible Maximilien,"