th this not very conciliatory document, the well-practised
tactician drew up to the door of the Foreign Office, and demanded to see
the Secretary of State.

"Give him this card and this note, sir," said he to the well-dressed and
very placid young gentleman who acted as his private secretary.

"Sir Horace is very poorly, sir; he is at this moment in a mineral bath;
but as the matter you say is pressing, he will see you. Will you pass
this way?"

Mr. Neville followed his guide through an infinity of passages, and at
length reached a large folding-door, opening one side of which he was
ushered into a spacious apartment, but so thoroughly impregnated with
a thick and offensive vapor that he could barely perceive, through the
mist, the bath in which Upton lay reclined, and the figure of a man,
whose look and attitude bespoke the doctor, beside him.

"Ah, my dear fellow," sighed Upton, extending two dripping fingers in
salutation, "you have come in at the death. This is the last of it!"

"No, no; don't say that," cried the other, encouragingly. "Have you had
any sudden seizure? What is the nature of it?"

"He," said he, looking round to the doctor, "calls it 'arachnoidal
trismus,'--a thing, he says, that they have all of them ignored for many
a day, though Charlemagne died of it. Ah, Doctor,"--and he addressed a
question to him in German.

A growled volley of gutturals ensued, and Upton went on:--

"Yes, Charlemagne,--Melancthon had it, but lingered for years. It is
the peculiar affection of great intellectual natures over-taxed and
over-worked."

Whether there was that in the manner of the sick man that inspired hope,
or something in the aspect of the doctor that suggested distrust, or a
mixture of the two together, but certainly Neville rapidly rallied from
the fears which had beset him on entering, and in a voice of a more
cheery tone, said,--

"Come, come, Sir Horace, you 'll throw off this as you have done other
such attacks. You have never been wanting either to your friends or
yourself when the hour of emergency called. We are in a moment of such
difficulty now, and you alone can rescue us."

"How cruel of the Duke to write me that!" sighed Upton, as he held up
the piece of paper, from which the water had obliterated all trace of
the words. "It was so inconsiderate,--eh, Neville?"

"I'm not aware of the terms he employed," said the other.

This was the very admission that Upton sought to obtain, and in