t they are not stamped," objected the Princess, who knew more about
such things than she sometimes admitted.

"You are mistaken. They are all stamped for their respective values, and
the stamps are cancelled by Guido's signature."

"That is very strange! I could almost have sworn that there was not a
stamp on any of them! How could that be? He used to write them on half
sheets of very thick note paper, and I never gave him any stamps."

"He probably had some in his pocket-book," said Monsieur Leroy. "At all
events, they are there."

"So much the better. But it is very strange that I should never have
noticed them."

Like many of those singular beings whom we commonly call "mediums,"
Monsieur Leroy was a degenerate in mind and body, and his character was
a compound of malign astuteness, blundering vanity, and hysterical
sensitiveness, all directed by impulses which he did not try to
understand. Without the Princess's protection through life, he must have
come to unutterable grief more than once. But she had always excused his
mistakes, made apologies for him, and taken infinite pains to make him
appear in the best light to her friends. He naturally attributed her
solicitude to the value she set upon his devotion to herself, since
there could be no other reason for it. Doubtless a charitable impulse
had at first impelled her to take in the starving baby that had been
found on the doorstep of an inn in the south of France. That was all he
knew of his origin. But he knew enough of her character to be sure that
if he had not shown some exceptional gifts at an early age, he would
soon have been handed over to servants or peasants to be taken care of,
and would have been altogether forgotten before long. Instead, he had
been spoiled, sent to the best schools, educated as a gentleman, treated
as an equal, and protected like a son. The Princess had given him money
to spend though she was miserly, and had not checked his fancies in his
early youth. She had even tried to marry him to the daughter of a rich
manufacturer, but had discovered that it is not easy to marry a young
gentleman who has no certificate of birth at all, and whose certificate
of baptism describes him as of unknown parents. On one point only she
had been inexorable. When she did not wish him to dine with her or to
appear in the evening, she insisted that he should stay away. Once or
twice he had attempted to disobey these formal orders, but he had
regretted