k when Albert de Chantonnay emerged
from the long window of his study, a room opening on to a moss-grown
terrace, where this plotter walked to and fro like another Richelieu and
brooded over nation-shaking schemes.

He carried a letter in his hand and wore an air of genuine perturbment.
But even in his agitation he looked carefully round before he spoke.

"Here," he said to the Marquis and his fond mother, who watched him
with complacency--"here I have a letter from Dormer Colville. It is
necessarily couched in very cautious language. He probably knows, as
I know, that any letter addressed to me is liable to be opened. I have
reason to believe that some of my letters have not only been opened, but
that copies of them are actually in the possession of that man--the head
of that which is called the Government."

He turned and looked darkly into a neighbouring clump of rhododendrons,
as if Louis Napoleon were perhaps lurking there. But he was nevertheless
quite right in his suspicions, which were verified twenty years later,
along with much duplicity which none had suspected.

"Nevertheless," he went on, "I know what Colville seeks to convey to us,
and is now hurrying away from Paris to confirm to us by word of mouth.
The bank of John Turner in the Rue Lafayette has failed, and with it
goes all the fortune of Madame St. Pierre Lawrence."

Both his hearers exclaimed aloud, and Madame de Chantonnay showed signs
of a desire to swoon; but as no one took any notice, she changed her
mind.

"It is a ruse to gain time," explained Albert, brushing the thin end of
his moustache upward with a gesture of resolution. "Just as the other
was a ruse to gain time. It is at present a race between two resolute
parties. The party which is ready first and declares itself will be the
victor. For to-day our poor France is in the gutter: she is in the
hands of the canaille, and the canaille will accept the first who places
himself upon an elevation and scatters gold. What care they--King or
Emperor, Emperor or King! It is the same to them so long as they have a
change of some sort and see, or think they see, gain to themselves to be
snatched from it."

From which it will be seen that Albert de Chantonnay knew his
countrymen.

"But," protested Madame de Chantonnay, who had a Frenchwoman's
inimitable quickness to grasp a situation--"but the Government could
scarcely cause a bank to fail--such an old-established bank as Turner's,
which has