you will drive me mad!"

"Oh, Norman! my dear, dear Norman!" cried she, passionately; "it is not
yet too late."

"Too late for what?"

"Not too late to gain back his favor. When he saw the letter in the
King's hand, calling you Count of Amalfi, he said: 'This looks ill for
the monarchy. I have a Scotch earldom myself in my family granted by
another king the day after he had lost his own crown.' Try, then, if you
cannot rally to the cause those men who are so much under your influence
that as you have often told me they only wanted to be assured of
your devotion to pledge their own. If _he_ could believe the cause
triumphant, there is nothing he would not do to uphold it."

"Yes," said he, thoughtfully, "there never lived the man who more
worshipped success! The indulgences that he heaped upon myself were
merely offerings to a career of insolent triumph."

"You never loved him, Norman," said she, sadly.

"Love had no share in the compact between us. He wanted to maintain a
cause which, if successful, must exclude from power in England the men
who had insulted him, and turned him out of office. I wanted some one
who could afford to pay my debts, and leave me free to contract more.
But why talk to you about these intrigues?--Once more, will he see me?"

She shook her bead slowly in dissent. "Could you not write to him,
Norman?" said she at last.

"I will not write to a man under the same roof as myself. I have some
news for him," added be, "if he cares to buy it by an audience; for I
suppose he would make it an audience;" and the last word he gave with
deep scorn.

"Let me bring him the tidings."

"No, he shall bear them from myself, or not hear them at all. I want
this villa!" cried be, passionately,--"I want the title to sell it, and
pay off a debt that is crushing me. Go, then, and say I have something
of importance enough to have brought me down some hundred miles to tell
him, something that deeply concerns the cause he cares for, and to which
his counsel would be invaluable."

"And this is true?"

"Did I ever tell you a falsehood, mother?" asked he, in a voice of deep
and sorrowful meaning.

"I will go," said she, after a few moments of thought, and left the
room. Maitland took a bottle of some essenced water from the table and
bathed his forehead. He had been more agitated than he cared to confess;
and now that he was alone, and, as he believed unobserved, his features
betrayed a deep depression. As