e carved from
granite." Then he added aloud, "But you have relations left you?"

"I have one remaining. Three times I presented myself to ask his support
and three times he ordered his servants to turn me away."

"Oh, mon Dieu! my dear Mr. Mordaunt," said Mazarin, hoping by a display
of affected pity to catch the young man in a snare, "how extremely your
history interests me! You know not, then, anything of your birth--you
have never seen your mother?"

"Yes, my lord; she came three times, whilst I was a child, to my nurse's
house; I remember the last time she came as well as if it were to-day."

"You have a good memory," said Mazarin.

"Oh! yes, my lord," said the young man, with such peculiar emphasis that
the cardinal felt a shudder run through every vein.

"And who brought you up?" he asked again.

"A French nurse, who sent me away when I was five years old because no
one paid her for me, telling me the name of a relation of whom she had
heard my mother often speak."

"What became of you?"

"As I was weeping and begging on the high road, a minister from Kingston
took me in, instructed me in the Calvinistic faith, taught me all he
knew himself and aided me in my researches after my family."

"And these researches?"

"Were fruitless; chance did everything."

"You discovered what had become of your mother?"

"I learned that she had been assassinated by my relation, aided by four
friends, but I was already aware that I had been robbed of my wealth and
degraded from my nobility by King Charles I."

"Oh! I now understand why you are in the service of Cromwell; you hate
the king."

"Yes, my lord, I hate him!" said the young man.

Mazarin marked with surprise the diabolical expression with which the
young man uttered these words. Just as, ordinarily, faces are colored by
blood, his face seemed dyed by hatred and became livid.

"Your history is a terrible one, Mr. Mordaunt, and touches me keenly;
but happily for you, you serve an all-powerful master; he ought to aid
you in your search; we have so many means of gaining information."

"My lord, to a well-bred dog it is only necessary to show one end of a
track; he is certain to reach the other."

"But this relation you mentioned--do you wish me to speak to him?" said
Mazarin, who was anxious to make a friend about Cromwell's person.

"Thanks, my lord, I will speak to him myself. He will treat me better
the next time I see him."

"You have the means, t