to his toilet, but with his brain in that state which is induced by passing the night in contemptuous violation of the laws of nature, or, in other words, in travelling by the mail.

He seated himself at an unoccupied table, and had called once or twice for an invisible waiter, when a handsome man in blue naval costume, who was standing before the fireplace with the Times paper in his hands, advanced towards him, exclaiming :

"Mon cher Duc-quel plaisir." "Plait il ?" said Guy, in surprise. "Sir?"

"I beg you a thousand pardons," said the stranger. "I mistook you for the Duc Matthieu de Montmorency. But your strong family likeness must be my apology. I cannot doubt that I am addressing Mr. Laval Carrington."

"You have, every way, the advantage of me," said Guy, highly flattered.

"No doubt you have forgotten me, as I should have done you but for your likeness. We have met at my cousin Ullswater's, I think. Wilfred Branksea."

Lord Wilfred risked the coup. He calculated on the probable ignorance of his auditor that his handsome figure was no more likely to be seen beneath Sir Henry Ullswater's roof than was that of the "Other Party," to whom he had referred, in the Celestial courts. But he was playing a game in which his stake was not so great as to shake his nerves. He played

and won.

both wings.

He had hit a bird on

"Very stupid of me not to remember," said Guy. "But when Lady Ullswater's rooms are open they are so full."

"So full that those who are fortunate enough to find them always open may well forget the mob," said Lord Wilfred. 66 Well, to

show that you forgive my mistake, come and breakfast at my table. Up by express ?"

"By mail this morning," said Guy p",

66

Plays the deuce with the nervous system," said Lord Wilfred. "As an old traveller, I have always found night travelling a mistake. You are fit for nothing the next day. But a sleepless night involves a desire for breakfast." And his Lordship arranged accordingly.

Slowly, quietly, pleasantly, did the accomplished man of the world now set himself to storm and captivate the young man. He saw that his first dash had told; he saw that his effort was succeeding; he surpassed himself. From careless gossip on the events of the day, he advanced to politics. Guy listened with kindling glance.

"Never was there such an opening for a man really fitted to lead," said Lord Wilfred. "I am not a politician. For that reason I may be better able to read the signs of the times than those who are blinded by the fury of the struggle. The leading men are all but exhausted, and they have no school, no successors."

"In the House of Commons ?" "In Parliament, in Europe, in the civilised world. The young men of the day are growing up like Tarquin's poppies. They think it bad taste to excel; and the state into which we shall drift is one that nobody can imagine."

"But there is one very able man at the helm."

"Yes; I am enough of an Irishman to feel proud of Pilgrimton as a countryman. The way in which he drags the coat over the floor of the house is irresistible. The unmitigated contempt which he veils-no, which he displays, by his deferential and yet rollicking manner is beyond all praise. It is so richly deserved. He is an able

"If you would only describe them."

"I? It should be the voice of contemporary history. Do you remember what Sydney Smith said of little John?"

"Something about his readiness to take command of the Channel Fleet?"

"Just so. Well, Sydney Smith was wrong, as most men are who regard jest as wit. His view was hasty-not absolutely wrong-but very imperfect. To give it vitality, to complete the portrait, he should have premised that he would only have grasped the command of the fleet, or of the lithotomic forceps, in order to keep some fit person from assuming it; and that, when this mischief had been done, he would have deserted his flag at the first puff of wind, and left his patient in the midst of the operation."

"You are severe."

"Truth is always severe," replied Lord Wilfred. "That's why men hate her. Well then, look at the next competitor-a clever fellow no doubt, and a man who can speak very well; but just one of those men who are too clever by half-or perhaps by three-quarters. Then, he can never forget that he is not one of us. Those people never do. The House does, but they can't. Then, his talent is of that eminently casuistical and hairsplitting turn that he is in constant opposition to himself. His mind keeps in a state of composition of

"Yes; but his son is not in the

stirrups. He will ride straight enough when he is. But the cup -the wishing cup-will be found in Benjamin's sack, and when that is the case you will see that Benjamin is of the school of the Chief Baker. He will not remember anyone but himself. He will sell brothers and followers like a flock of sheep. He will climb to power like a Japanese, and stick to it like a boa constrictor. It will be time to look to the caulking of the ship if Benjamin ever get hold of the helm."

"You take a gloomy view."

"How could any man take a bright view while France is in such a condition. The state of France has paralysed the energy of Europe. With France kingless, where is the impulse of regeneration to come from?"

"It think that is very true," said Guy.

"I said I am not a politician," continued Lord Wilfred; "but I do feel deeply touched to have seen, to have even the honour of knowing, the real king of France, the orphan of the Temple, his queenly daughters, in whom the beauty of the two sides of their parent's house is reproduced-to know what are his capacities, his aspirations,

how he would surround himself with men such as France needs, men who would blend French esprit with English practice. Forgive me, Mr. Laval Carrington, I lose my self-possession at the idea."

"Do you refer to Henry V.?" asked Guy.

"No, I do not. I refer to the real Louis XVII.-to the Prince you may have heard spoken of as the Duke of Gascony."

"I take the greatest interest in the subject," said Guy, now all alive. "I have endeavoured to learn all about it, but in vain. There was a man in Germany, and a man in America, and a man in London, and one of them was called Naundorf, and one was a watchmaker, or something of the kind. How delighted I should be to have the matter explained!"

The explanation is very simple," said his Lordship. "But perhaps I should not have said what I did. It was indiscreet. Still, I am sure it will go no farther. Well, the three that you mention as the German, and the man in London, and the watchmaker are one. The name Naundorf was imposed on him by the Prussian police. But he is Louis de Bourbon, seventeenth of the name, or rather Louis de France, fourteenth of the name. As to the American, his story is curious. But he does not profess to have any recollections beyond a certain day when he fell into a river in America. He may be error honestly. The Duke Gascony must be either Louis or an impostor. It is quite possible that Monsieur de Joinville may have believed that Eleasar Williams was the Dauphin, and that all the latter says about this is true, but it proves nothing. I do not

in

of

quite so much believe in human rascality," said Lord Wilfred ingenuously," as many people do. I prefer a theory that leaves no one

in the position of a wilful, mischievous, contemptible impostor.If you saw Louis de Bourbon, you could not think him to be that. Yet he is either that—or rightful king of France."

"How I wish that I could see him!"

"Dear me," said his Lordship reflectively, "your enthusiasm has quite communicated itself to me, I am afraid. Do you know that I positively have an audience to-day ?-and I think that I could stretch my credit with the Great Seneschal, so far as to take youif you really are in earnest."

a

"Oh-Lord Wilfred-what kindness! But your time-I leave London to-night."

I start directly after breakfast." 'Nothing would be more convenient for me," said Guy. "I did not mean to leave the hotel till about one. Will let me you come?"

So Lord Wilfred bagged his unreluctant prey, and sent the waiter to call a cab.

"Beaufort House," said his Lordship, taking his seat.

"Where be that, Sir?" asked the cabman civilly.

'Oh, I forgot "-and Lord Wilfred duly instructed the driver.

"Conversation in these rough and ready vehicles, and in these distressingly noisy streets, requires one or two instruments for its support," remarked his Lordship: "a speaking trumpet or an ear trumpet. As we happen to have neither, we are reduced to a temporary silence." So the young men drove rapidly and silently through the streets.

CHAPTER L.

BEAUFORT HOUSE.

THE hansom cab which bore Lord Wilfred Brank sea and Guy Laval Carrington stopped at a garden gate

in one of those once rural suburbs of London that formed, at rather an earlier date, a favourite site for the mansions of the great mercantile aristocracy. A good-sized house stood in a little square enclosure of garden, containing several lofty elms. A closely boarded pair of wooden gates opened in a high wall, and within the gates was a small porter's lodge-very small, but adequate for the purpose.

'Ring the bell," said Lord Wilfred to the cabman.

A glass or shutter of about eight inches square opened in the gate, and part of a man's face became visible through the aperture, as though reconnoitering the visitors.

Qui sonne ?" said the porter, for it was that functionary-" dat is, wot is there?"

"Give him this," said Lord Wilfred, handing his card to the cabman, who presented that credential at the little window.

The glass reclosed. After some two or three minutes the sound of the removal of a bar or bolt was heard, and a door opened, not the carriage gate, however, but a side door. "Entrez, messieurs," said the porter, "dat is, come in if you plese."

"You can keep the cab or pay him, just as you like, Carrington," said Lord Wilfred carelessly, as he stepped from the footboard.

Guy glanced at the retreating figure and did the latter.

The gate having been closed and barred behind them, the porter, who was not in livery, but seemed as if he also fulfilled the functions of gardener, and possibly might discharge some other external duties, led the way down a short and broad gravel drive, terminating in a splotch or tadpole-shaped expanse of gravel before the house, to the hall-door. He ascended three steps and rang a bell.

The door opened almost imme

diately, and a page, duly garnished with the distinctive three rows of buttons on his tight black jacket, stood in the gap. The porter handed him the card, and returned to his own dominions.

The page glanced at the card and retreated, opening the door wide as he did so. Guy became conscious of a good-sized hall, bounded by a handsome stone staircase rising in a single flight to the right, and leading to a stone gallery that ran across the opposite wall. In this hall, with the immobility of a statue, stood an old man, very thin, very grey, and attired in a species of antiquated black court suit. He received the card from the page, and advancing with a bow, silently ushered the pair into a small waiting-room to the left of the entrance, and withdrew.

"Monsieur le Duc attend votre seigneurie," said the old usher, re-entering. He guided them to an adjoining apartment, little larger than the first, and opened the door. By the empty fireplace stood a tall man, of highly distinguished appearance.

His face was strikingly handsome, tinged with an air of noble melancholy; his spare grey curls were arranged with exquisite care. His dress was slightly different from the English evening costume. He wore knee breeches and white silk stockings. Under his waistcoat appeared the edge of a broad blue ribbon, not worn scarfwise, but looking something like an under-waistcoat. A tiny rapier hung perpendicularly, rather behind than at his side, and, buttoned to his coat, close to the place where a pair of sinecure buttons seem to have long held a prescriptive licence, by a small gold-laced strap, was what looked like the key of the hall door. Which, indeed, it was.

Curious, thought Guy, to see a

man of such apparent personal dignity think to support questionable claims by wearing attire like that. Lord Wilfred bowed, but said nothing.

"Sa Majesté daigne de recevoir votre Seigneurie," said Monsieur le Duc de Beaupreau, with a courtly salutation.

The nobleman whom Guy had mistaken for the Duke of Gascony might have stepped out of a canvas painted by Vandyk. He might have been the Beauvilliers of the Court of Louis XIV. He was what most people would regard as an anachronism in the nineteenth century, of ancient blood and unstained name, the sole survivor of a once proud and numerous family, his patrimonial estates had been pared and sheared to comparatively a mere pittance. The faith of the Duke de Beaupreau in the descendant of St. Louis, and the son of the martyrs of the Temple, was as firm as that which, as a pious Catholic and wellbred gentleman, he placed in his God. That said, all was said. In him whom men called an impostor, whom he himself had known as a penniless fugitive, he recognised that Dauphin whose death, asserted by the rabble tyrants of the Revolution, has never, as an historic fact, been even incidentally proved. If that man was Louis de Bourbon, he was the legitimate sovereign and master of Claude de Beaupreau. Whatever that nobleman was-or had-or could do-were at the service of the heir of St. Louis. Thus it came to pass that the shrunken revenues of the Duc de Beaupreau proved the main support of the miniature and bizarre court held within the walls of Beaufort House. To the group thus strangely assorted entered a fourth. It was a stout man, with a red face, perfectly white hair, cut short, shaven cheeks and chin, black burly eyebrows, and a heavy black mous

The two noblemen conducted Lord Wilfred and Guy through the hall, along a sort of passage, leading apparently to servants' apartments, to an outhouse or laundry, which seemed to have been converted into either a foundry, a forge, or a mechanic's fitting shop. It had something of all three. The Duke opened the door gently as if he had feared to wake an infant. passed in and then returned, closing it with the samé precaution. In a few seconds he reopened it, and nodded to La Fère, who then, still in silence, motioned the two Englishmen to enter.

He

At a vice bench, at the end of the black and dusty apartment, bent a stout, grey-headed figure of middle height or rather below it, engaged in filing a piece of brass. The Duc advanced towards the bench and stood silently by. The workman completed his filing, removed the piece of brass, and carefully examined it; and then, turning round towards the three men who stood by the door, observed:

"Vous me trouvez sous les attributions de Vulcan plutôt que de Jupiter. C'est égal; tous les deux furent dieux."

Lord Wilfred advanced with a low bow. "Vous m'apportez un ami à me presenter, n'est-ce pas, mi lord ?" said the workman.

Guy Carrington had once, only