etter by an aide-de-camp, informing
me that if I were found the next day within the circumscription of his
command, he would have me arrested."

"Arrested!" murmured the young man. "What! arrest you, my most faithful
servant?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And notwithstanding you had signed the name Parry?"

"To all my letters, my lord; and the aide-de-camp had known me at St.
James's and at Whitehall, too," added the old man with a sigh.

The young man leaned forward, thoughtful and sad.

"Ay, that's what he did before his people," said he, endeavoring to
cheat himself with hopes. "But, privately--between you and him--what did
he do? Answer!"

"Alas! my lord, he sent to me four cavaliers, who gave me the horse with
which you just now saw me come back. These cavaliers conducted me, in
great haste, to the little port of Tenby, threw me, rather than embarked
me, into a fishing-boat, about to sail for Brittany, and here I am."

"Oh!" sighed the young man, clasping his neck convulsively with his
hand, and with a sob. "Parry, is that all?--is that all?"

"Yes, my lord; that is all."

After this brief reply ensued a long interval of silence, broken only by
the convulsive beating of the heel of the young man on the floor.

The old man endeavored to change the conversation; it was leading to
thoughts much too sinister.

"My lord," said he, "what is the meaning of all the noise which preceded
me? What are these people crying 'Vive le Roi!' for? What king do they
mean? and what are all these lights for?"

"Ah! Parry," replied the young man ironically, "don't you know that
this is the King of France visiting his good city of Blois? All those
trumpets are his, all those gilded housings are his, all those gentlemen
wear swords that are his. His mother precedes him in a carriage
magnificently encrusted with silver and gold. Happy mother! His minister
heaps up millions, and conducts him to a rich bride. Then all these
people rejoice, they love their king, they hail him with their
acclamations, and they cry, 'Vive le Roi! Vive le Roi!'"

"Well, well, my lord," said Parry, more uneasy at the turn the
conversation had taken than at the other.

"You know," resumed the unknown, "that my mother and my sister, whilst
all this is going on in honor of the King of France, have neither money
nor bread; you know that I myself shall be poor and degraded within a
fortnight, when all Europe will become acquainted with what you have
told me.