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Why, what art thou doing here, and now, of all places and times?" demanded Kriegsthurm, as soon as he had picked himself up from the top of the laughing Boginsky, and was standing face to face with him.

"I was listening to what you and the Princess were saying," replied Boginsky merrily. "The devil, but you are strong. You will face a man boldly enough when he faces you; but you were frightened when I came behind you just now."

"I am afraid of your democratic committees," said Kriegsthurm.

"You have reason to be so," said Boginsky.

"Meet me again in half an hour," said Kriegsthurm, naming the place. And so they hurriedly parted.

"No danger after all, your Highness. Only an old brother conspirator, who may be useful to us. Now let us re

"I cannot say.

sume our conversation. What were the contents of these wills which you took?" Do you think that I would demean myself so far as to abuse my brother's confidence? I burnt them, and a nice smell they made. My maid thought that I had scorched my boots against the stove, and I showed her a burnt glove to account for it."

At this characteristic piece of hopeless wandering folly on her part, Kriegsthurm was very nearly throwing up the whole business in despair. Not in disgust, for he in his way loved the woman. He went on, without any sign of contempt.

"That is rather a pity. One would have liked to know. I suppose he kept two wills by him to see how different people behaved themselves, so that he might destroy either. The one, if Madame will follow me, was probably made in favour of your favourite Thomas, the heir of his choice." And he paused to let her speak.

"And the other in favour of Arthur," she said.

"Excuse me. Silcote proposed to make him his heir, but Arthur refused, and they had words over it. No. The second will was probably in favour of

James Sugden, a young man towards whom the Squire has shown the most singular favour: a favour so singular for him that there is little doubt that he is forgive me-the darling son of your brother's old age.

"That cub!" exclaimed the Princess. "I am glad that you consider him a cub," said Kriegsthurm. "I have never seen him, and have doubtless been misinformed about him. He has been represented to me as a youth of singular personal beauty, of amazingly artistic talent, and of irresistibly engaging

manners."

"He kept all these qualities carefully to himself whenever I saw him," said the Princess. "Yet still he was handsome, now I think of it, and drew beautifully, and everybody was very fond of him."

"Exactly," said Kriegsthurm, admiring the admirable way in which she contradicted herself, talking "smartly" one moment, and then letting her honesty, or simplicity, or whatever it was, get the better of her. "And this beautiful youth, born close to the lodge-gates, is desperately in love with your niece Anne, the Squire's favourite grandchild. It seems evident that one of the Squire's two plans is to foster a marriage between these two, and leave them the estate."

"If your theory of his birth be true," said the Princess, laughing, "it seems hardly probable that my brother, with his extremely rigid notions, should encourage a match between Anne and her uncle!"

Kriegsthurm had never thought of that. He had merely an idea that they were in some sort cousins. I suppose that all conspiracies go blundering and tumbling about in this way before the time of projection. Judging from their almost universal failure, one would certainly say so.

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Besides, I remember all about this boy. He was not born near the parkgates at all. His father and mother were two Devonshire peasants, who migrated up into our part of the world when the child was quite big. And

moreover my brother's morality is utterly beyond suspicion,-has not his inexorable Puritanism been the cause of half this misery-but to whom do I talk? I remember all about the boy and his belongings now. His mother was a woman of singular and remarkable beauty with a rude ladylike nobility in her manner, which I never saw anywhere else. That very impertinent old woman Miss Raylock (who by the by was creeping and bothering about at the ball to-night,) pointed her out to me first, one time when I was talking about the superiority of the Italian peasant over the English. And I remember all about the boy too. Tom and the people went out after some poachers from Newby, and this boy showed the most splendid courage, and got fearfully beaten and bruised, almost killed. And Tom,-was it not like my dear Tom ?-carried the boy to Silcotes in his arms, as tenderly as if he was his own son. He little knew that the ungrateful cub would ever come to stand between him and his inheritance."

As little, kind Princess, as he knew that the poor wounded boy he carried in his arms so tenderly was his own son. Once in his wild loose wicked life, God gave him the chance of doing his duty by his own child he had so cruelly neglected and ignored: ignored so utterly that he would not inform himself about its existence. Through his own unutterable selfishness, once, and once only, had he the chance of doing his duty by his own son: on that occasion he did it tenderly and well. Let us remember this in his favour, since we have but little else to remember. The man was not all bad. Few men are. Show me a perfectly good man, and I will show you a perfectly bad man. The challenge is not likely to be accepted, I think.

"Your Highness's reminiscences are interesting," said Kriegsthurm. "This youth, this James Sugden, stands between the Colonel and his inheritance, and must be removed."

"What do you propose to do?"

then.

"Wait, your Highness. I give up my theory of his birth, of course. I see that it is indefensible so the original difficulty remains, don't you see? What is more likely than that Silcote should have planned a match between these two?"

"Nothing, I suppose." "Of course, nothing We all know that they are his two favourites, and moreover they have fallen in love with one another."

"Excuse me once more," said the Princess. "This boy is not in love with Anne. He has the most extreme personal objection to her, to all her ways, and all her works. It is that mealy-faced, wretched little Reginald who is her adorer. This James worships Dora, Algernon's daughter."

"As if it mattered with a boy of nineteen. If his patron gave the word he would fall in love with this beautiful little niece of yours to morrow."

"I don't know that," said the Princess. "He is terribly resolute, quiet as he looks. And she is a vixen."

"Your Highness is so absorbed in sentimental trivialities between boys and girls, that we shall never get on."

"They count, you know. And Dora, the Squire's other favourite, is desperately fond of him."

"I beg pardon?"

"I said that she was deeply, jealously in love with this cub."

"That might be made to work" said Kriegsthurm. "Do you see how?" "No," said the Princess.

"No more do I just at present," said Kriegsthurm, thoughtfully. "Have you any remark to make, Madame "

"I have to remark that you and I have got into a very idiotic muddle at present. I generally remark that an idiotic muddle is the upshot of all conspiracies. I have not been engaged in so many as you have, but I have been engaged in enough, and to spare: I can speak of the effect of them on my own mind, and that effect has been muddle, unutterable muddle: a muddle which I fear has got chronic with me. For instance, I don't at this moment know

whether you want James Sugden to marry Anne, or Anne to marry Reginald, or what you want. If I could marry my brother Harry it would set everything right at once, because I could leave the property to Tom after his death; but then I can't marry Harry, and besides, after this despatch box business he will never speak to me again. I see nothing for it but for Tom to marry Anne. She is a good deal younger than he is, and has a bad temper. If that could be brought about it would set everything right."

"But he is her uncle," suggested Kriegsthurm, aghast.

"Lor' bless me, so he is," replied the Princess. "How funny that I should not have thought of it before! I hope we shall get out of this business without some one accidentally marrying his grandmother. There is only one thing more that I have to say, which is this: that I most positively refuse to marry any body whatever, even if it were to save the Silcote property from the hammer. I had quite enough of that with my sainted Massimo."

"But, your Highness--"

"He and his Signora Frangipanni indeed. Yes. Oh, quite so. The little doll. Frangipanni was a gentleman : and he believes to this day that I instigated Massimo both to the political villany and to the other worse villany. It is you, Kriegsthurm, who have torn my character to tatters, and compromised my name with your plots, until I am left all alone, a miserable and silly old woman!"

"Is she off?" thought Kriegsthurm, for she had raised her tone so high in uttering the last paragraph that the nearest sentry challenged. She was not "off." She began crying, and modulated her tone.

"Madame is safer here than elsewhere," said Kriegsthurm again. "She will remember the fearfully traitorous conduct of her late husband to the Italian cause in 1849. She will remember that she has rendered it impossible for her to go to England in the face of her brother's vengeance, and impossible to go to Italy in the face of the vengeance of the Italian

party and Signor Frangipanni. She will then remain here?"

"I think you had better leave me," she said. "I am getting nervous. There, go. I will have no harm done to the boy, but do the best you can for Tom. Are you angry with me? You know that I have always loved you, and been a faithful friend to you. Don't be angry with me."

Kriegsthurm was a great scoundrel, but then he was a most good-natured man. Many who knew a very great deal about him said that he was a goodhearted man. Probably his heart had very little to do with his actions. Most likely, lying inside that enormous chest, it was a very healthy heart, with the blood clicking steadily through it as true as a time-piece. In spite of his villanies and plots and scoundrelisms, he had some suspicion of what is called a "good heart." If one had said that some part of the man's brain was benevolent, and was expressed on his ferociously jolly great face, one might be nearer the truth. Anyhow, there was benevolence and gratitude in the man somewhere, for he knelt down before the foolish old Princess, took her hand in his, kissed it, bowed to her, and sped away towards his interview with Boginsky, leaving her drying her tears and looking towards the French and Austrian graves over at Aspern.

CHAPTER XLIV.

NOT MUCH TO HIS ADVANTAGE.

"THAT is a very noble woman," said Kriegsthurm, as he half walked, half trotted along. "She is worth the whole lot of 'em put together. She is a fool, like the rest of her family, but she is to my mind the best of them. She complains that she has got puzzled about the family plot: suppose I were to compli cate it further by marrying her? No, that wouldn't do. In the first place she wouldn't have me, and in the second place we should all be in Bedlam as soon as the old man died, trying to find out our different relationships. That young

cub, Sugden, might turn out to be my grandmother in the mêlée. She has managed to turn my brains upside down; they must be getting older than they were, or she would never have addled them like this. If I can get a thousand a year from Colonel Silcote, this is my last plot; for my wits are failing me. I have debauched my logical powers and my power of examining evidence by going in for that wretched spiritualist business, the only piece of real charlatan ism I ever did in my life. It has not paid, and I may say myself, as a very long-headed rascal, that charlatanism never does pay in the long run. money comes too easy and too quick to stay by you. You put other folks off their heads, but then you put yourself off too. You cannot succeed unless you put yourself off your head and make yourself believe in it. And so you get to think that the fools are not fools, and, even if they are, that the crop will last for ever. And so you debauch your soul about your money matters, and spend when you ought to be saving.

The

"It is the same with conspiracies," he was going on, when he came sharp round the corner on to the place of meeting with Boginsky, and there was Boginsky waiting for him: who, when he saw him, burst out laughing.

"What in the name of goodness," said Kriesthurm, laughing in his turn, "brings you into this wasp's nest?"

"Revolutionary business, my dear," said Boginsky. "We, in London, thought that, as all the troops were being poured south, there might be a chance for us. We thought that a democratic rising in Vienna, in the rear of the army, just when they were hammer-and-tongs at it with the French, would produce a most unforeseen complication; and we live by complication and confusion, as you know."

"Now for a thorough-going fool give me a thorough-going democrat," said Kriegsthurm, impatiently. "Do you think that, if you had any chance, I should not have known of it? Do you see on which side I am? Austria will be beaten certainly, but in spite of

that I have declared against the circles."

"I gave up all hopes the moment I saw it," said Boginsky.

"And how is your precious scheme working?"

Well! you know better than I can tell you," said Boginsky. "It will not work at all. The committees won't look at us. They say that the demolition of the fortifications has changed the chances utterly. I came here expecting to head a revolt, and all the employment I can find is a very dirty job."

"And what may that be?" said Kriegsthurm.

"To watch you, my dear, and, if I can catch you alone and unarmed-as you are now; in a private place-like this; in the dead of night with no witnesses-as now; to assassinate you. Which I am of course going to do this very instant, with this very American revolver. Therefore go down on your knees, and say your prayers at once."

Kriegsthurm laughed pleasantly. "You have got among bad company, then."

"I have. The old breed of democrats is dying out, and are replaced by men who disgrace the name, like these fellows. These fellows are Orsinists to a man. And what is worse, they have forgotten, or learnt to vilipend, the great names of the movement: Garibaldi, Kossuth, Mazzini, Manin, ay, and Boginsky, are sneered at by them as halfhearted men. These men, who sit, and plot, and drink, laugh at us who rose for the cause, and were taken redhanded. They proposed this business to me as a proof of my sincerity. I need not say that I accepted their offer with avidity, lest some more unscrupulous democrat among them might take it in hand. You are in great danger here."

"I thank you, Boginsky. You are a gentleman. You yourself are in very great danger here. I think, from an answer he gave me to-night, that Tom Silcote has seen you, and if he saw you again might denounce you to-morrow. I must get you out of this place."

"You must, indeed, and yourself also."

"We will let that be; for the present, you are the first person to be considered. Are you poor?"

"I have absolutely nothing. I have nothing to eat. I have no clothes but what I stand in. Was there ever a democrat of my sort who was rich? And I have no passport. As for passing the lines into Italy, that is entirely impossible. I could get northward, but I have no money."

"You shall have money and passport if you will do something for me."

"Your money is Austrian, and I will not touch it."

"You can pay it back."

"Well, Jesuit! What is it then?" "There is a young English artist, one Sugden, now at Prague."

"Well! Do you wish me to murder him for you?"

"I wish to heaven you would. It is so terribly unlucky, you're being a gentleman and a man of honour."

"Not unlucky for you, is it?" said Boginsky.

"I am not sure of that," said Kriegsthurm, "I am getting so sick of the whole business, and more particularly of the Silcote complication, that I almost wish you had followed the instructions of the democratic committee, and put a bullet into me. I don't ask you to murder him. Will you meet him, and involve him in some of your confounded democratic conspiracies?"

"Teach him the beauty of democracy?" said Boginsky.

"Exactly," said Kriegsthurm. "Let him be seen in your sweet company before you make your own escape. Introduce him to the lower democratic circles, such as those of Vienna, who employed you to assassinate me. Excite his brain about the matter (he is as big a fool as you, I am given to understand). Show him the whole beauty of extreme democracy on Austrian soil; do you understand ?"

"I see," said Boginsky. "Compromise him thoroughly?"

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Ex-actly, once more," said Kriegsthurm. "He can't come to any harm, you know. He is an English subject.

They would send the British fleet into the Danube sooner than allow one of his pretty curls to be disarranged. Will you teach this noble young heart the beauties of Continental democracy?"

"Certainly," said Boginsky. "Where shall I meet you to get the money and the passport?"

Kriegsthurm made the appointment, and the night swallowed up Boginsky.

Kriegstuurm's brains had been so very much upset by his interview with the Princess, that he felt little inclined to go home to bed without having arrived at some conclusion or another. "These Silcotes," he said to himself, "would addle the brains of a Cavour. And I am not the man I was. That Boginsky will do nothing, you know. I must have this cab of a boy out of the way somehow; hang him! I wish he was dead. If the young. brute were only dead, one could see one's way," he added aloud.

A sentinel, to whom he was quite close in his reverie, challenged.

"Silcote," cried Kriegsthurm savagely. "What says he?" said the sentinel. "Stand!"

"Novara! Novara! dummer kopf," replied Kriegsthurm, testily. "Is he deaf?"

"Buffalora," said the sentry, sulkily, bringing his musket sharply to his shoulder, and covering something behind Kriegsthurm, and dangerously in line with him. "You behind there, who are following the Herr, and have heard the passwords, come forward, or I will fire."

"May the, &c. confound this most immoral city," said Kriegsthurm. "If I was only once well out of it! Now, who in the name of confusion will this turn out to be? Knock him over, sentry, if he don't advance. I am Kriegsthurm of the police."

"He is coming," said the sentry, with his finger still on the trigger, covering the advancing man. "Ah! here he is. You are now responsible for him, sir."

There crept into the light of the lamp which hung above the sentry's box a very handsome beardless youth,