The time may come, if Madame continues her present course of action, when I may say that Madame has served me shamefully and shabbily."

The poor Princess, softened perhaps by the wind from Aspern, began to cry; and to wish, strangely enough, but with a true instinct, that her very objectionable nephew, Arthur, was there, or even old Miss Raylock, to confront this rascal. But she was all alone, and wept. So Kriegsthurm went on.

"The time may come when I may have to say to Madame that it is hopeless for her to attempt to escape me. That I hold Madame in the hollow of my hand. That I love her she need not be told, but ingratitude of the most traitorous kind may extinguish love. I may have to say all this at some future time; at present I do not. Madame has proposed this secluded meeting herself, knowing that she could. not propose a public one; but she will see that I am all-powerful, and that I must be treated with confidence."

The Princess had not yet got through her softened mood, and was still crying. The fool got contemptuous of her, of her, the most Silcote of the Silcotes"the incarnation of Silcotism," as Miss Raylock once said, who ought to know; and in his contempt for her he leaped too quickly to his first object, and began his business exactly at the wrong end. "I want money, Madame. poor."

She wiped her eyes directly. always do want money," she said. wonder what you do with it all. I have not got any."

I am

"You

"I

But

"Madame has eighty thousand pounds' worth of jewellery. I must have some of that."

Had he not himself told Tom Silcote that very night that she would see him, Tom, deeply as she loved him, in the workhouse (or to that effect), before she would part with a single stone? Yet this fool and conspirator (are they not now and then convertible terms?) proposed for himself what he would never have proposed for her darling Tom.

An Italian, one would have thought,

would never have made such a blunder, and would never have made such a venture. But of what nation was Kriegsthurm again? It was a foolish venture, and the tables were at once turned for a time.

Kriegsthurm proposed to her to touch. her sacred accumulations. The attorney blood which was in her from her father's side, and the old English land accumulative blood which was in her from her mother's side, alike rose in rebellion to this demand, flushed her cheek, and, strange to say, passed back to her brain, and set her wits a-going.

And she had been to Italy and seen the theatricalities, and could imitate them on occasions; as Master Kriegsthurm will bear witness to his dying day. She gave him one instance of this now, and he never asked for another.

They were standing together under a lonely gas-lamp, which was burning steadily within its glass, in spite of the wandering wind which came from Aspern, and they could see one another's faces.

His was confident, bold, and coarse (to refresh your memory after so long, he was a square, coarse-featured man, with a red complexion). Hers was pale, thin, and refined, with the remains of a very great beauty. They stood and looked at one another; he, at least, looked at her until he saw that she was not looking at him, but over his shoulder, at which time he began to feel an uneasy sensation in his back. Still he looked at her steadily.

And her face changed as he watched it. The eyes grew more prominent, the lips parted; she was gazing at something which he dared not turn and face: gazing over his right shoulder, too, most unpleasantly. No one would care to have, say for instance Lady Macbeth, looking steadily over your right shoulder, while you were perfectly conscious that Malcolm's mishap was not your first offence. The Princess of Castelnuovo stared so very steadily over Kriegsthurm's right shoulder that she had frightened him out of his wits before she tried her grand coup.

All of a sudden she broke out, sharp, shrill, and clear.

"Mind that man! He is going to stab you from behind, and penetrate your lungs. Mind him!"

Kriegsthurm, with a loud oath, dashed alongside of her, and began his beforementioned polyglot system of swearing. We have nothing to do with that, but something with this.

The Princess knew quite well that his life was not perfectly safe here in Vienna, and she had tried to frighten him by pretending to see a democrat, thirsting for his blood, behind him in the dark. She had intended to frighten him, but she frightened herself also a little bit. She never believed that there was a betrayed democrat behind him; she only wanted to scare him. She had only evolved that democrat who was to penetrate Kriegsthurm's lungs out of her internal consciousness. Yet, when Kriegsthurm had run round behind her for protection, they both heard that heretofore purely imaginary democrat running away along the ramparts as hard as ever his legs would carry him.

The Princess, though quite as heartily frightened as if she by idly and incredulously saying an old spell had raised the devil, was the first to recover her presence of mind. Kriegsthurm, though a bold man, was as white as a sheet when he again faced her under the gas-lamp, with his eyes squinting over his shoulder. She began"Ungrateful man! your life!"

I have saved

"I acknowledge it, Madame. Did you see the man ?"

"I saw him plainly."

Oh, Princess! Princess!

"Was he like any one you had ever seen before?" asked Kriegsthurm.

For," he added, as his nerve came back, "the spirits have told me that."

She was fond of the man, and had got the whip hand of him through an accident. Her fondness for the man caused her to spare the use of the whip. The revelations of the spirits had been so exceedingly unsatisfactory that even her silly credulity had given way under them, and spiritualism was now among the follies of the past. She was friendly with him.

"Never mind the spirits; and I will tell you why I run away from you. You knew everything about Sir Godfrey Mallory; and you knew, and know, that I was innocent. My brother was a man so fierce and so strict that I feared his anger, particularly after Miss Raylock had got the power of putting her tongue to work about it. I consulted you, and you promised to save my reputation. You then came to me, and told me that you had done so by making Silcote believe that Sir Godfrey's attentions were paid to my sister-in-law, his wife. You remember my despair and horror at such a course, but you pointed out to me that she was too far above suspicion for any breath to tarnish her character; and indeed I believed you. But, to my infinite wonder and consternation, the poison took hold on my jealous brother's heart, in spite of my open familiarity with poor Godfrey Mallory, whom I liked in a way-you know what a fool I am, at least your pocket does. I dared neither speak nor hold my tongue. Her death lies at the door of my cowardly folly and your villany. And she will be a ministering angel when you and I lie howling."

One is allowed to quote Shakespeare, and so I put Shakespeare's words in her mouth. Her own were fiercer and coarser, for Silcote's sister could be fierce and coarse at times.

"Till very lately, Kriegsthurm, I thought that this was all you had done. The other day, when you were dunning me beyond patience for money, and I threatened to appeal to my brother, you told the old horrible story, that you got my handwriting forged by some

had

woman's hand, accusing that saint of wishing to poison her husband, and had put poison in a place where he could find it. Then, for the first time, I realized that you and I had murdered my sainted sister-in-law's body, and my brother's soul; and I fled here, where I believed you dared not follow me."

"Madame paid me highly," said Kriegsthurm, and also treated me kindly. My object was to carry out Madame's wishes most fully. And I And I

did so."

There was a certain terrible truth in the man's defence of himself. There was a large liberal grandeur about his rascality which made him, without all question, the greatest rascal in Europe. The general rule, I believe, in employing a rascal is to promise him his pay as soon as the villany is completed. Such a procedure was utterly unnecessary in the case of Kriegsthurm. Pay Kriegsthurm well first, and then all you had to look out for was that he did not, in his enthusiastic devotion to rascality, outrun his instructions, and compromise you. What his real name was, or where he came from, is a thing we shall never know. His name certainly could not have been Kriegsthurm; even in the case of such an arch scoundrel as he was it is impossible to believe that he would keep his own name. That would have been a stroke of genius with which we cannot credit even him. Dalmatian crossed with Greek might produce him, did not his German, almost Dutch, physique render such a theory entirely impossible.

Yet such entirely noble people as Frangipanni and Boginski believed in the man; believed, at the very least, that, if he was faithless in most things, he was faithful to them. Conspirators, often at the same time the most honest and the most credulous of men, are not difficult men to deceive. About this man there was a broad radical magnificence of scoundrelism which might have taken in some statesmen, leave alone conspirators.

"We will not dispute further, your Highness," he said, now giving her the

title she loved; "I served your interests, and I was paid. I will begin all over again. I want money."

"And I have none," said the Princess, now perfectly confident. "This is a good beginning."

"But your Highness may get money again. What is your object in wanting money?"

"You know. I want it for Tom." "Use your influence with your brother, and reinstate him as heir of Silcotes. I tell you, and I know, that there is no one whom the Squire loves as he does the Colonel. The Colonel is steady enough now, and has had his lesson. The Squire is quite sick of Arthur, and besides, Arthur has fits,. and bullies the old gentleman. I tell your Highness that, if you and I put our wits to work, we can get the Colonel out of this, and safe back to Silcote before the French have crossed the bridge of Buffalora."

"Are they going to fight, then?" said the Princess eagerly."

"Are they not?" said Kriegsthurm emphatically. "Do you think I don't know? Did I ever leave England. before?"

"I cannot have Tom," said the Princess, "in a campaign, he is so rash and audacious. Can you save Tom for me? I cannot do without Tom now; I would part with my opals to save Tom. Kriegsthurm, can you save Tom for me?"

"No harm will come to him, your Highness, believe me. He must go to the campaign; not only because his character is ruined if he does not, not only because he cannot avoid it if he would, but because one half of my plan consists in his winning back his father's favour by distinguishing himself in it."

"Give me you plan, then."

"I will," said Kriegsthurm. "Now you must allow that the Colonel has a very good notion of his own interests. You can't deny that, your Highness; at least, if you did, your pocket would turn inside out in contradiction."

"I allow it," said the Princess; "Tom is fond of pleasure; and natural, too, at his time of life."

Tom was over forty, but she always looked on him as a boy.

"I do not exactly allude to his fondness for pleasure, your Highness," said Kriegsthurm, "I only allude to his perfect readiness to lead an easy life on other people's money. I call attention, en passant only, to this amiable little trait in his character, to show that we shall have no difficulty whatever with him; that, if he saw any chance of being reinstated at Silcotes, he would give up his career in the Austrian army, his character for personal courage, his chance of salvation, yourself, or the mother that bore him, to attain it."

"Tom certainly has all the persistence of the family in the pursuit of an object," was the way the Princess complacently put it.

"He has. I asked if he would stick at murder, and he rode the high horse, and talked about kicking me down stairs; but he wouldn't; no more would "—he was going to say, "you," but he said,

66

a great many other people."

"Now, instead of trying to bring Tom's nature to your own level, my dear Kriegsthurm," replied the Princess, "you should try to raise your nature to his;" which was pretty as it stood, but which, on the face of it, did not seem to mean quite enough to arrest Kriegsthurm's line of argument.

"Now," he therefore regardlessly went on, 66 we three being pretty comfortable together, and I having to find brains for the pair of you, it comes to this. The Squire is very fond of you, and very fond of the Colonel. You haven't hit it off together exactly, you remark. Why, no; but nothing is commoner than for people who are very fond of one another not to hit it off. You and the Colonel don't always hit it off, you know; why, if he were to offer to touch your jewels, the dead soldiers at Aspern down there would hear the row you two would make together. I and my poor wife didn't hit it off together. She put a knife into me once, but I didn't think much about that. When I married a Sicilian I knew that I might have to attend vespers. But

Because, the next time my brother sees me, he will probably assassinate me publicly, and, if not, hand me over to justice for robbing him. Now don't look farouche like that, and, if you choose to swear, swear in something less than a dozen languages at once."

"I was not swearing, your Highness; I was praying-praying for the safety of your Highness's intellect."

"Well, then, if praying produces that effect on your face, I should advise you to stop it until you have consulted a priest of your faith, whatever that may be."

"I will do so, Madame. Will Madame explain ?" said Kriegsthurm, coming down sulkily to the inferior title.

"Certainly. You forged a letter to my brother in my handwriting about this poison business. We need not go into that; we have had more than enough of it; and the mischief arising from it is only beginning, as it seems to

me.

My brother kept that letter in a despatch-box in his bedroom. I, living with him so long, and knowing his habits, knew that he had something there, but did not know what. When, only the other day, you made the shameless confession of your unutterable villany to me, I acted on the spur of the moment. I stole his keys, I opened the black box, I stole all the papers in it, and immediately afterwards met him in the gallery."

"Did he suspect?"

now.

"No; but he must have found out I took all kinds of papers, mortgages to the amount of many thousands of pounds, as it seems to me; and two of

his wills."

"Certainly," said the Princess.

"I might prosecute," said Kriegsthurm, "if your Highness returned to England."

"The idea of your prosecuting any one, my dear Kriegsthurm! I don't know anything about law, but I know perfectly well that you are by far too disreputable a person to be believed on your oath. Off your oath you can be trusted, as I have often shown you; but once sworn, I would not trust you, and you know that no English jury would." "I have been faithful to Madame."

"Yes, but never on your oath. I have heard you swear, certainly, in many languages, but you never took an oath to me. Pray, par exemple, to how

many democratic societies have you sworn oaths, and how many of those oaths remain unbroken?"

"Your Highness is too strong for me. I wish to talk business. I cannot stand your Highness's logic."

"I am a great fool," replied the Princess, "but, like most fools, I am very cunning in a low way; and a fool must be a very low fool who is not a match for a thrice-perjured conspirator like you. You have ten times my brains, and ten times my physique; yet you tremble at every shiver of the breeze in the poplars above you. You would answer that I am a conspirator also; yet who is the bravest of us now? I am not so much afraid of a violent Women are braver Come, to business."

death as you are.

than men.

"I think I am as brave as most men, Madame," said Kriegsthurm; " and I was not, until this moment, aware that your Highness was in expectation of a sudden and violent death, as I have been for now twenty years. If your Highness doubts my nerve, would you be No. 91.-VOL. XVI.

Kriegsthurm was standing with his head bent down into his bosom, as if shamefaced at losing the scolding-match with her. He now said, without altering his attitude, "Your Highness speaks Italian as well as English. Will you allow me to converse with you in Italian?"

Again she said, "Certainly."

Kriegsthurm, with his chin on his chest, went on in that language. "The Signora has challenged my nerves, I now challenge hers. The dearest friend of the man whom her late husband wronged so shamefully is standing close behind her; if you turn you are lost. I am going to seize him, and I shall have to spring past you. He does not

understand Italian. I demand therefore of the Signora that she shall remain perfectly tranquil in the little imbroglio which approaches. All I ask of your Highness is, that you will walk away from the combatants."

The Princess, with her English nerves, stood as still as a lighthouse; Kriegsthurm, with his great powerful head bent down to the hollow of his enormous chest, as if to make his congé. But in one moment he had dashed past her, and had seized in his enormous muscular, coarse-bred, inexpressive fingers, the cravat and collar of our old friend Boginsky.

CHAPTER XLIII.

66 THE CUB'S" PROSPECTS ARE DISCUSSED. KRIEGSTHURM was some fifteen stone, and Boginsky some eleven. The natural consequence of which was, that Boginsky came hurling on his back on the gravel, with old Kriegsthurm a-top of him. The Princess heard the hurlyburly, but, like a true woman, waited to see what would be made out of it. She did not hear the conversation which followed between the two men, when they had got on their legs again, which was carried on in German.

C