while Fauchet complained
of the insult to his secretary, and Mr. Randolph neither would nor could
do anything.

The February of 1794 passed, and March and April, while Glentworth,
Washington's physician, came, and afterward Dr. Rush, to Chovet's
disgust. Meanwhile the young man lay in bed wasting away with grim
doubts of phthisis in the doctors' minds until in May there was a gain,
and, as once before, he was allowed a settle, and soon was in the air on
the upper porch, and could see visitors.

Schmidt, more gaunt than ever, kissed the hand of the vicomtesse in his
German fashion, as for the first time through all the long vigils they
had shared with Mary Swanwick she thanked him for positive assurance of
recovery.

"He is safe, you tell me. May the God who has spared my son remember you
and bless you through all your days and in all your ways!"

He bent low. "I have my reward, Madame."

Some intuitive recognition of what was in his mind was perhaps naturally
in the thought of both. She said, "Will it end here?"

Seeing before him a face which he could not read, he replied, "It is to
be desired that it end here, or that some good fortune put the sea
between these two."

"And can you, his friend, say that? Not if he is the son I bore. I trust
not," and, turning away, she left him; while he looked after her and
murmured: "There is more mother in me than in her," and going out to
where Rene lay, he said gaily: "Out of prison at last, my boy. A grim
jail is sickness."

"Ah, to hear the birds who are so free," said Rene. "Are they ever ill,
I wonder?"

"Mr. Hamilton is below, Rene--just come from New York. He has been here
twice."

"Then I shall hear of the world. You have starved me of news." There was
little good to tell him. The duke, their cousin, had fled from France,
and could write to madame only of the Terror and of deaths and ruin.

The Secretary came up fresh with the gaiety of a world in which he was
still battling fiercely with the Republican party, glad of the absence
of his rival, Jefferson, who saw no good in anything he did or said.

"You are very kind," said De Courval, "to spare me a little of your
time, sir." Indeed he felt it. Hamilton sat down, smiling at the
eagerness with which Rene questioned him.

"There is much to tell, Vicomte. The outrages on our commerce by the
English have become unendurable, and how we are to escape war I do not
see. An embargo has been proclaimed by the Presid