rt to the country; she should never again need them,
never again see them, for he would take her to his own land when
trouble of war had passed, and there she should forget pain and
sorrow and her desolate, loveless childhood; she should only
remember that in the Province of Lorraine she had met the man she
loved. All else should be a memory of green trees and vineyards
and rivers, growing vaguer and dimmer as the healing years passed
on.

The knife-blade in the box bent, sprang back--the box flew open.

He did not realize it at first; he looked at the three folded
papers lying within, curiously, indolently. Presently he took
them and looked at the superscriptions written on the back, in
the handwriting of the marquis. The three papers were inscribed
as follows:

"1. For the French Government after the fall of the
Empire."

"2. For the French Government on the death of Louis
Bonaparte, falsely called Emperor."

"3. To whom it may concern!"

"To whom it may concern!" he repeated, looking at the third
paper. Presently he opened it and read it, and as he read his
heart seemed to cease its beating.

"_TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN_!

"Grief has unsettled my mind, yet, what I now write is
true, and, if there is a God, I solemnly call His curses
on me and mine if I lie.

"My only son, Rene Philip d'Harcourt de Nesville, was
assassinated on the Grand Boulevard in Paris, on the 2d
of December, 1851. His assassin was a monster named
Louis Bonaparte, now known falsely as Napoleon III.,
Emperor of the French. His paid murderers shot my boy
down, and stabbed him to death with their bayonets, in
front of the Cafe Tortoni. I carried his body home; I
sat at the window, with my dead boy on my knees, and I
saw Louis Bonaparte ride into the Rue St. Honore with
his murderous Lancers, and I saw children spit at him
and hurl curses at him from the barricade.

"Now I, Gilbert, Marquis de Nesville, swore to strike.
And I struck, not at his life--that can wait. I struck
at the root of all his pride and honour--I struck at
that which he held dearer than these--at his dynasty!

"Do the people of France remember when the Empress was
first declared enciente? The cannon thundered from the
orangerie at Saint-Cloud, the dome of the Invalides
blazed rockets, the city glittered under a canopy of
coloured fire. Oh, they were ve