enthusiast after virtue—hopeful, affectionate,
confiding, giving his young heart to that fair-
haired girl as freely as he would have bestowed
a moss-rose, and she, making light of the gift,
with a woman's coquetry, torturing him by
a jealous levity, till he resented the wrong, and
tore himself away. And then Catinka—how I
tried the gold of my nature in that crucible, and
would not fall in love with her before I had
made her worthy of my love; and when I failed
in that, how I had turned from love to friendship,
and offered myself the victim for a man I
never cared about. No matter; the world will
know me at last. Men will recognise the grand
stuff that I am made of. If commentators spend
years in exploring the recondite passages of
great writers, and making out beauties where
there were only obscurities, why should not all
the dark parts of my nature come out as
favourably, and some flattering interpreter say,
"Potts was for a long time misconceived; few
men were more wrongfully judged by their
contemporaries. It was to a mere accident, after
all, we owe it that we are now enabled to render
him the justice so long denied him. His was
one of those remarkable natures in which it is
difficult to say whether humility or self-confidence
predominated?"

Then I thought of the national excitement to
discover the missing Potts; just as if I had been
a lost Arctic voyager. Expeditions sent out to
track me—all the thousand speculations as to
whether I had gone this way or that—where
and from whom the latest tidings of me could
be traced—the heroic offers of new discoverers
to seek me living, or, sad alternative, restore to
the country that mourned me the "reliquia
Pottsi." I always grew tender in my moods of
self-compassion, and I felt my eyes swimming
now in pity for my fate; and let me add in this
place my protest against the vulgar error which
stigmatises as selfishness the mere fact of a
man's susceptibility. How, I would simply
ask, can he feel for others who has no sense of
sympathy with his own suffering nature? If
the well of human kindness be dried up within
him, how can he give to the parched throats the
refreshing water of compassion?

Deal with the fact how you may, I was
very sorry for myself, and seriously doubted if
as sincere a mourner would bewail me when I
was gone.

If a little time had been given me, I would
have endeavoured to get up my snug little
chamber somewhat more like a prison cell: I
would have substituted some straw for my
comfortable bed, and gracefully draped a few chains
upon the walls and some stray torture implements
out of the Armoury; but the envoy came
like a "thief in the night," and was already on
the stairs when he was announced.

"Oh! this is his den, is it?" cried he from
without, as he slowly ascended the stairs.
"Egad! he hasn't much to complain of in the
matter of a lodging. I only wish our fellows
were as well off at Vienna." And with these
words there entered into my room a tall young
fellow, with a light brown moustache, dressed in a
loose travelling suit, and with the lounging air of
a man sauntering into a café. He did not remove
his hat as he came in, or take the cigar from,
his mouth; the latter circumstance imparting
a certain confusion to his speech that made him
occasionally scarce intelligible. Only deigning
to bestow a passing look on me, he moved
towards the window, and looked out on the grand
panorama of the Tyrol Alps, as they enclose
the valley of Innspruck.

"Well," said he to himself, "all this ain't
so bad for a dungeon."

The tone startled me. I looked again at
him, I rallied myself to an effort of memory,
and at once recalled the young fellow I had
met on the South-Western line, and from whom,
I had accidentally carried away the despatch-bag.
To my beard, and my long imprisonment,
I trusted for not being recognised, and I sat
patiently awaiting my examination.

"An Englishman, I suppose?" asked he,
turning hastily round. "And of English
parents?"

"Yes," was my reply, for I determined on
brevity wherever possible.

"What brought you into this scrape? I
mean, why did you come here at all?"

"I was travelling."

"Travelling? Stuff and nonsense! Why
should fellows like you travel? What's your
rank in life?"

"A gentleman."

"Ah! but whose gentleman, my worthy
friend? Ain't you a flunkey? There, it's out!
I say, have you got a match to light my cigar?
Thanks—all right. Look here, now—don't let
us be beating about the bush all the day—I
believe this government is just as sick of you as
you are of them. You've been here two months,
ain't it so?"

"Ten months and upwards."

"Well, ten months. And you want to get
away?"

I made no answer; indeed, his free-and-easy
manner so disconcerted me that I could not
speak, and he went on:

"I suspect they haven't got much against you,
or that they don't care about it; and, besides,
they are civil to us just now. At all events,
it can be done—you understand?—it can be
done."

"Indeed," said I, half superciliously.

"Yes," resumed he, "I think so; not but
you'd have managed better in leaving the thing
to us. That stupid notion you all have of writing
letters to newspapers and getting some troublesome
fellow to ask questions in the House,
that's what spoils everything! How can we
negotiate when the whole story is in the Times
or the Daily News?"

"I opine, sir, that you are ascribing to me an
activity and energy I have no claim to.''

"Well, if you didn't write those letters, somebody
else did. I don't care a rush for the
difference. You see, here's how the matter stands.
This Mr. Brigges, or Rigges, has gone off, and