hin; for that the room was
inhabited was plain enough, one figure continuing to cross and recross
the windows as M'Caskey drew nigh.

Stilly and softly, without a ripple behind him, he glided on till the
light skiff stole under the overhanging boughs of a large acacia, over a
branch of which he passed his rope to steady the boat, and then standing
up he looked into the room, now so close as almost to startle him.

CHAPTER XLI. EAVESDROPPING

If M'Caskey was actually startled by the vicinity in which he suddenly
found himself to the persons within the room, he was even more struck by
the tone of the voice which now met his ear. It was Norman Maitland
who spoke, and he recognized him at once. Pacing the large room in
its length, he passed before the windows quite close to where M'Caskey
stood,--so close, indeed, that he could mark the agitation on his
features, and note the convulsive twitchings that shook his cheek.

The other occupant of the room was a lady; but M'Caskey could only
see the heavy folds of her dark velvet dress as she sat apart, and so
distant that he could not hear her voice.

"So, then, it comes to this!" said Maitland, stopping in his walk and
facing where she sat: "I have made this wearisome journey for nothing!
Would it not have been as easy to say he would not see me? It was no
pleasure to me to travel some hundred miles and be told at the end of it
I had come for nothing."

She murmured something inaudible to M'Caskey, but to which Maitland
quickly answered: "I know all that; but why not let _me_ hear this from
his own lips, and let _him_ hear what I can reply to it? He will tell
_me_ of the vast sums I have squandered and the heavy debts I have
contracted; and I would tell _him_ that in following his rash counsels I
have dissipated years that would have won me distinction in any land of
Europe."

Again she spoke; but before she uttered many words he broke suddenly
in with, "No, no, no! ten thousand times no! I knew the monarchy was
rotten--rotten to the very core; but I said, Better to die in the street
_a cheval_ than behind the arras on one's knees. Have it out with the
scoundrels, and let the best man win,--that was the advice _I_ gave.
Ask Caraffa, ask Filangieri, ask Acton, if I did not always say, 'If the
king is not ready to do as much for his crown as the humblest peasant
would for his cabin, let him abdicate at once.'"

She murmured something, and he interrupted her with: "Be