roach of the hero
of the day. None knew better than he that already in far-off England
another great hero, named Wellington, was organising the forces which
presently would crush--for ever this time--the might and ambitions of
the man whom England had never acknowledged as anything but a usurper
and a foe.

And closely buttoned inside his coat Clyffurde had a letter which he had
received at his lodgings in the Alma quarter only a few moments before
he sallied forth into the streets. That letter was an answer to a
confidential enquiry of his own sent to the Chief of the British Secret
Intelligence Department resident in Paris, desiring to know if the
Department had any knowledge of a vast sum of money having come
unexpectedly into the hands of His Majesty the King of France, before
his flight from the capital.

The answer was an emphatic "No!" The Intelligence Department knew of no
such windfall. But its secret agents reported that Victor de Marmont,
captain of the usurper's body-guard, had waylaid M. le Marquis de St.
Genis on the high road not far from Lyons. The escort which had
accompanied Victor de Marmont on that occasion had been dismissed by him
at Villefranche, and the information which the British Secret
Intelligence Department had obtained came through the indiscretion of
the sergeant in charge of the escort, who had boasted in a tavern at
Lyons that he had actually searched M. de St. Genis and found a large
sum of money upon him, of which M. de Marmont promptly took possession.

When Bobby Clyffurde received this letter and first mastered its
contents, the language which he used would have done honour to a Toulon
coal-heaver. He cursed St. Genis' stupidity in allowing himself to be
caught; but above all he cursed himself for his soft-heartedness which
had prompted him to part with the money.

The letter which brought him the bad news seemed to scorch his hand, and
brand it with the mark of folly. He had thought to serve the woman he
loved, first, by taking the money from her, since he knew that Victor de
Marmont with an escort of cavalry was after it, and, secondly, by
allowing the man whom she loved to have the honour and glory of laying
the money at his sovereign's feet. The whole had ended in a miserable
fiasco, and Clyffurde felt sore and wrathful against himself.

And also among the crowd--among those who came, heartsick, hopeless,
forlorn, to watch the triumph of the enemy as they had watched the