fortunes
are also of equal precariousness: we, Sir, of the old noblesse gave up
our all, in order to follow our King into exile. Victor de Marmont was
rich. His fortune could have repurchased the ancient Cambray estates and
restored to that honoured name all the brilliance which it had
sacrificed for its principles."

Still Clyffurde remained irritatingly silent, and St. Genis asked him
somewhat tartly:

"I trust I am making myself clear, Sir?"

"Perfectly, so far," replied the other quietly, "but I am afraid I don't
quite see how you propose that I could serve Mlle. Crystal in all this."

"You can with one word, one generous action, Sir, put me in a position
to claim Crystal as my wife, and give her that happiness which she
craves for, and which is rightly her due."

A slight lifting of the eyebrows was Clyffurde's only comment.

"Mr. Clyffurde," now said Maurice, with the obvious firm resolve to end
his own hesitancy at last, "you say yourself that by taking this money
to His Majesty, or rather to his minister, you, individually, will get
neither glory nor even gratitude--your name will not appear in the
transaction at all. I am quoting your own words, remember. That is so,
is it not?"

"It is so--certainly."

"But, Sir, if a Frenchman--a royalist--were able to render his King so
signal a service, he would not only gain gratitude, but recognition and
glory. . . . A man who was poor and obscure would at once become rich
and distinguished. . . ."

"And in a position to marry the woman he loved," concluded Bobby,
smiling.

Then as Maurice said nothing, but continued to regard him with glowing,
anxious eyes, he added, smiling not altogether kindly this time,

"I think I understand, M. de St. Genis."

"And . . . what do you say?" queried the other excitedly.

"Let me make the situation clear first, as I understand it, Monsieur,"
continued Bobby drily. "You are--and I mistake not--suggesting at the
present moment that I should hand over the twenty-five millions to you,
in order that you should take them yourself to the King in Paris, and by
this act obtain not only favours from him, but probably a goodly share
of the money, which you--presumably--will have forced some unknown
highwayman to give up to you. Is that it?"

"It was not money for myself I thought of, Sir," murmured St. Genis
somewhat shamefacedly.

"No, no, of course not," rejoined Clyffurde with a tone of sarcasm quite
foreign to his usual ea