dying child was substituted for him: that he was
smuggled out and carried to America, Bellenger was the agent employed.
The dauphin's sister is married to her cousin, the nephew of Monsieur.
She herself believes these things; and it is certain a sum of money is
sent out to America every year for his maintenance. He was reduced to
imbecility when removed from the Temple. It is not known whether he will
ever be fit to reign if the kingdom returns to him. No communication has
been held with him. He was nine years old when removed from the Temple:
he would now be in his nineteenth year. When I last saw him he was a
smiling little prince with waving hair and hazel eyes, holding to his
mother's hand"--

"Stop!"

The frenzy of half recollection came on me, and that which I had put
away from my mind and sworn to let alone, seized and convulsed me.
Dreams, and sensations, and instincts massed and fell upon me in an
avalanche of conviction.

I was that uncrowned outcast, the king of France!

BOOK II

WANDERING

I

A primrose dawn of spring touched the mountains as Madame de Ferrier and
I stepped into the tunnel's mouth. The wind that goes like a besom
before sunrise, swept off the fog to corners of the sky, except a few
spirals which still unwound from the lake. The underground path to De
Chaumont's manor descended by terraces of steps and entered blackness.

A rank odor of earth filled it; and I never passed that way without
hearkening for the insect-like song of the rattlesnake. The ground was
slippery, and thick darkness seemed to press the soul out of the body.
Yet I liked it; for when we reached the staircase of rock that entered
the house, she would vanish.

And so it was.

She did say--"Good-night--and good-morning."

And I answered, "Good-morning and good-night."

We were both physically exhausted. My head swarmed as with sparkles, and
a thousand emotions tore me, for I was at the age when we risk all on
chances. I sat alone on the steps, unmindful of that penetrating chill
of stone which increases rather than decreases, the longer you sit upon
it, and thought of all that had been said by my new friend at the
camp-fire, while the moon went lower and lower, the potter turned his
wheel, and the idiot slept.

The mixed and oblique motives of human nature--the boy's will--worked
like gigantic passions.

She had said very little to me in the boat, and I had said very little
to her; not realiz