scrapes in store
for you, and advised you.'

'You did, General,' I confessed. 'Will you tell me what it is Prince
Ernest is in dread of?'

'A pitiable scandal, sir; and if he took my recommendation, he would find
instant means of punishing the man who dares to threaten him. You know
it.'

I explained that I was aware of the threat, not of the degree of the
prince's susceptibility; and asked him if he had seen the princess.

'I have had the honour,' he replied, stiffly. 'You gain nothing with her
by this infamous proceeding.'

I swallowed my anger, and said, 'Do you accuse me, General?'

'I do not accuse you,' he returned, unbendingly. 'You chose your path
some ten or twelve years ago, and you must take the consequences. I
foresaw it; but this I will say, I did not credit the man with his
infernal cleverness. If I speak to you at all, I must speak my mind. I
thought him a mere buffoon and spendthrift, flying his bar-sinister story
for the sake of distinction. He has schemed up to this point
successfully: he has the prince in his toils. I would cut through them,
as I have informed Prince Ernest. I daresay different positions lead to
different reasonings; the fellow appears to have a fascination over him.
Your father, Mr. Harry, is guilty now--he is guilty, I reiterate, now of
a piece of iniquity that makes me ashamed to own him for a countryman.'

The General shook himself erect. 'Are you unable to keep him in?' he
asked.

My nerves were pricking and stinging with the insults I had to listen to,
and conscience's justification of them.

He repeated the question.

'I will do what I can,' I said, unsatisfactorily to myself and to him,
for he transposed our situations, telling me the things he would say and
do in my place; things not dissimilar to those I had already said and
done, only more toweringly enunciated; and for that reason they struck me
as all the more hopelessly ineffectual, and made me despair.

My dumbness excited his ire. 'Come,' said he; 'the lady is a spoilt
child. She behaved foolishly; but from your point of view you should feel
bound to protect her on that very account. Do your duty, young gentleman.
He is, I believe, fond of you, and if so, you have him by a chain. I tell
you frankly, I hold you responsible.'

His way of speaking of the princess opened an idea of the world's, in the
event of her name falling into its clutches.

I said again, 'I will do what I can,' and sang out for Temple