has no ties with ours, a country that is the very refuge
of levellers and Carbonari--mort de ma vie! do you think that such would
not annihilate all chance of my cousin's restoration, and be an excuse
even in the eyes of Italy for formally conferring the sequestrated
estates on an Italian? No; unless, indeed, the girl were to marry an
Englishman of such name and birth and connection as would in themselves
be a guarantee (and how in poverty is this likely?) I should go back
to Vienna with a light heart, if I could say, 'My kinswoman is an
Englishman's wife; shall her children be the heirs to a house so
renowned for its lineage, and so formidable for its wealth?' Parbleu!
if my cousin were but an adventurer, or merely a professor, he had
been pardoned long ago. The great enjoy the honour not to be pardoned
easily."

Randal fell into deep but brief thought. The count observed him, not
face to face, but by the reflection of an opposite mirror. "This man
knows something; this man is deliberating; this man can help me,"
thought the count.

But Randal said nothing to confirm these hypotheses. Recovering from his
abstraction, he expressed courteously his satisfaction at the count's
prospects, either way. "And since, after all," he added, "you mean so
well to your cousin, it occurs to me that you might discover him by a
very simple English process."

"How?"

"Advertise that, if he will come to some place appointed, he will hear
of something to his advantage."

The count shook his head. "He would suspect me, and not come."

"But he was intimate with you. He joined an insurrection; you were more
prudent. You did not injure him, though you may have benefited yourself.
Why should he shun you?"

"The conspirators forgive none who do not conspire; besides, to speak
frankly, he thought I injured him."

"Could you not conciliate him through his wife--whom you resigned to
him?"

"She is dead,--died before he left the country."

"Oh, that is unlucky! Still I think an advertisement might do good.
Allow me to reflect on that subject. Shall we now join Madame la
Marquise?"

On re-entering the drawing-room, the gentlemen found Beatrice in full
dress, seated by the fire, and reading so intently that she did not
remark them enter.

"What so interests you, ma seuur?--the last novel by Balzac, no doubt?"

Beatrice started, and, looking up, showed eyes that were full of tears.
"Oh, no! no picture of miserable, vicious, Parisian l