st in shame."

The count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the
room, and said quietly,

"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice; talk commonsense. Heroics
sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the
tone of a family conversation."

Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change
in the expression of her countenance which had seemed to betray
susceptibility to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away.

"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one half of those ample
revenues: why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?"

"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the
pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his
possessions?"

"There is a probability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed
me in your researches you only thought there was a possibility."

"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned
some little time since that the question of such recall had been
suggested by the emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to
the State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged
abilities,--abilities! bah! and his popular name, deferred any decision
on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must
have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere question of time. He
cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty already extended to
the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in
power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice on which
I acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your
kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the
person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable
age; that if she were to wed, with the emperor's consent, some one whose
attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a
guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of
so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued
my friend) 'apply to the emperor for his consent to that alliance for
yourself,--you, on whom he can depend; you who, if the daughter should
die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."

"You saw the emperor?"

"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated that
so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against
me, when all wa