Shall I await
the rising of his royal highness to communicate all the particulars
which I have procured?"

"No, my dear baron. Monseigneur has desired that he should not be called
before two or three o'clock in the afternoon; he desires, also, that you
send off this morning these despatches by a special courier, instead of
waiting till Monday. You will entrust me with all the particulars you
have acquired, and I will communicate them to monseigneur when he wakes.
These are his orders."

"Nothing can be better, and I think his royal highness will be satisfied
with what I have collected. But, my dear Murphy, I hope the despatch of
the special courier is not a bad sign; the last despatches which I had
the honour of sending to his royal highness--"

"Announced that all was going on well at home; and it is precisely
because my lord is desirous of expressing as early as possible his
entire satisfaction, that he wishes a courier to be despatched this very
day to Prince Herkhauesen-Oldenzaal, Chief of the Supreme Council."

"That is so like his royal highness; were it to blame instead of
commend, he would observe less haste."

"Nothing new has transpired with us, my dear baron,--nothing at all. Our
mysterious adventures--"

"Are wholly unknown. You know that, since the arrival of his royal
highness in Paris, his friends have become used to see him but little in
public; it is understood that he prefers seclusion, and is in the habit
of making frequent excursions to the environs of Paris, and, with the
exception of the Countess Sarah Macgregor and her brother, no person is
aware of the disguises assumed by his royal highness; and neither of the
personages I have mentioned have the smallest interest in betraying the
secret."

"Ah! my dear baron," exclaimed Murphy, heaving a deep sigh, "what an
unfortunate thing it is that this accursed countess should be left a
widow at this very important moment!"

"She was married, I think, in 1827 or 1828?"

"In 1827, shortly after the death of the unfortunate child, who would
now be in her sixteenth or seventeenth year, and whose loss his royal
highness seems daily more to deplore."

"Far more so, indeed, than he appears to feel for the loss of his
legitimate offspring."

"And thus, my dear baron, we may account for the deep interest his royal
highness takes in the poor Goualeuse, arising as it does from the fact
that the daughter so deeply deplored would, had she lived, have bee