st, that if he did lay such a wager, I would advise
you to take any odds against him that his backers may give," said
L'Estrange, dryly; and while his lip quivered with anger, his eye
gleamed with arch ironical humor.

"You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need such an alliance
in order to regain his estates?"

"Yes; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I would not bet against, when he
backed his own luck as a rogue against Justice and Providence."

Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his heart; but he soon
recovered.

"And indeed there is another vague rumor that the young lady in question
is married already--to some Englishman."

This time it was Harley who winced. "Good Heavens! that cannot be
true--that would undo all! An Englishman just at this moment! But some
Englishman of correspondent rank, I trust, or at least one known for
opinions opposed to what an Austrian would call revolutionary
doctrines?"

"I know nothing. But it was supposed, merely a private gentleman of good
family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Count dictate a
marriage to the daughter as a condition of grace to the father?"

"No, not that!" said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But put yourself in the
position of any minister to one of the greatest European monarchies.
Suppose a political insurgent, formidable for station and wealth, had
been proscribed, much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party
striving against it, and just when the minister is disposed to relent,
he hears that the heiress to this wealth and this station is married to
the native of a country in which sentiments friendly to the very
opinions for which the insurgent was proscribed are popularly
entertained, and thus that the fortune to be restored may be so employed
as to disturb the national security--the existing order of things; this,
too, at the very time when a popular revolution has just occurred in
France,[21] and its effects are felt most in the very land of the
exile;--suppose all this, and then say if any thing could be more
untoward for the hopes of the banished man, or furnish his adversaries
with stronger arguments against the restoration of his fortune? But
pshaw! this must be a chimera! If true, I should have known of it."

"I quite agree with your lordship--there can be no truth in such a
rumor. Some Englishman hearing, perhaps, of the probable pardon of the
exile, may have counted on an heiress, and spread the report in