eave the aconite and
ether drops near me,--that will do, thank you."

Some minutes elapsed ere the door was opened; the slow footfall of
one ascending the stairs, step by step, was heard, accompanied by the
labored respiration of a man breathing heavily; and then Lord Glencore
entered, his form worn and emaciated, and his face pale and colorless.
With a feeble, uncertain voice, he said,--

"I knew you 'd see me, Upton, and I would n't go away!" And with this he
sank into a chair and sighed deeply.

"Of course, my dear Glencore, you knew it," said the other, feelingly,
for he was shocked by the wretched spectacle before him; "even were I
more seriously indisposed than--"

"And were you really ill, Upton?" asked Glencore, with a weakly smile.

"Can you ask the question? Have you not seen the evening papers,
read the announcement on my door, seen the troops of inquirers in the
streets?"

"Yes," sighed he, wearily, "I have heard and seen all you say; and yet
I bethought me of a remark I once heard from the Duke of Orleans:
'Monsieur Upton is a most active minister when his health permits; and
when it does not, he is the most mischievous intriguant in Europe.'"

"He was always straining at an antithesis; he fancied he could talk like
St. Simon, and it really spoiled a very pleasant converser."

"And so you have been very ill?" said Glencore, slowly, and as though he
had not heeded the last remark; "so have I also!"

"You seem to me too feeble to be about, Glencore," said Upton, kindly.

"I am so, if it were of any consequence,--I mean, if my life could
interest or benefit any one. My head, however, will bear solitude no
longer; I must have some one to talk to. I mean to travel; I will leave
this in a day or so."

"Come along with me, then; my plan is to make for Brussels, but it
must not be spoken of, as I want to watch events there before I remove
farther from England."

"So it is all true, then,--you have resigned?" said Glencore.

"Perfectly true."

"What a strange step to take! I remember, more than twenty years ago,
your telling me that you'd rather be Foreign Secretary of England than
the monarch of any third-rate Continental kingdom."

"I thought so then, and, what is more singular, I think so still."

"And you throw it up at the very moment people are proclaiming your
success!"

"You shall hear all my reasons, Glencore, for this resolution, and will,
I feel assured, approve of them; but they 'd o