Star of all human destinies! I kneel before
thee, and invoke from thy bright astrology an omen and a smile."

CHAPTER IV.

AN EPISODE.--THE SON OF THE GREATEST MAN WHO (ONE ONLY EXCEPTED) _EVER
ROSE TO A THRONE_, BUT BY NO MEANS OF THE GREATEST MAN (SAVE ONE) WHO
_EVER EXISTED_.

BEFORE sunrise the next morning I had commenced my return to London. I
had previously intrusted to the _locum tenens_ of the sage Desmarais,
the royal gift, and (singular conjunction!) poor Ponto, my uncle's dog.
Here let me pause, as I shall have no other opportunity to mention him,
to record the fate of the canine bequest. He accompanied me some years
afterwards to France, and he died there in extreme age. I shed tears
as I saw the last relic of my poor uncle expire, and I was not consoled
even though he was buried in the garden of the gallant Villars, and
immortalized by an epitaph from the pen of the courtly Chaulieu.

Leaving my horse to select his own pace, I surrendered myself to
reflection upon the strange alteration that had taken place in my
fortunes. There did not, in my own mind, rest a doubt but that some
villany had been practised with respect to the will. My uncle's constant
and unvarying favour towards me; the unequivocal expressions he himself
from time to time had dropped indicative of his future intentions on my
behalf; the easy and natural manner in which he had seemed to consider,
as a thing of course, my heritage and succession to his estates; all,
coupled with his own frank and kindly character, so little disposed
to raise hopes which he meant to disappoint, might alone have been
sufficient to arouse my suspicions at a devise so contrary to all past
experience of the testator. But when to these were linked the bold
temper and the daring intellect of my brother, joined to his personal
hatred to myself; his close intimacy with Montreuil, whom I believed
capable of the darkest designs; the sudden and evidently concealed
appearance of the latter on the day my uncle died; the agitation and
paleness of the attorney; the enormous advantages accruing to Gerald,
and to no one else, from the terms of the devise: when these were all
united into one focus of evidence, they appeared to me to leave no doubt
of the forgery of the testament and the crime of Gerald. Nor was there
anything in my brother's bearing and manner calculated to abate my
suspicions. His agitation was real; his surprise might have been
feigned; his offer of