"But if this cousin should prove to be a lady?"
suggested Mademoiselle Colonna.

"I would condemn her, of course—to
matrimony."

"I should think Trefalden would take care of
that!" laughed the Earl.

"But is the cousin a lady?" asked Lady
Castletowers, with seeming indifference.

"Alas! no, my dear mother, too surely he
belongeth to the genus homo. Trefalden's words
are— ' I have been assisting my cousin in the
arrangement of his affairs, he having lately
inherited a fortune of between four and five
millions sterling.'"

"I have no doubt that he is fat, ugly, and
disagreeable," said Major Vaughan.

"And plebeian," added Lady Castletowers,
with a smile.

"And illiberal," said Olimpia.

"And, in short, so rich," said the Earl, "that
were he hideous and ignorant as Caliban, society
would receive him with open arms, and the beauty
of the season would gladly wear orange-blossoms
for him at St. George's! What says this
honourable company—shall I invite him down to
Castletowers for a week or two, and shall we all fall to
worshipping the golden calf?"

"Not for the world!" exclaimed Olimpia,
scornfully; but she was the only one who
replied.

The breakfast-party then broke up. The Earl
went to his stables, Olimpia to her apartments,
and Major Vaughan to the billiard-room. Signor
Colonna and Lady Castletowers strolled to and
fro in the sunshine, outside the breakfast-room
windows.

"But who is this millionnaire?" asked the
Italian, eagerly.

"Caro amico, you know as much as I know,"
replied Lady Castletowers. " He is a cousin of
our solicitor, Mr. Trefalden, who is a very well-
bred gentlemanly person. As for this fortune,
I think I have heard that it has been
accumulating for one or two centuries—but that is probably
a mere rumour."

"Between four and five millions!" ejaculated
Colonna. "With such a fortune, what might
not be done by a friend to the cause!"

Lady Castletowers smiled.

"Sempre Italia!" she said.

"Sempre Italia," replied he, lifting his hat
reverently as he pronounced the words. "While
I live, Lady Castletowers. While I live."

They had come now to the end of the path,
and were about to return, when he laid his hand
on hers, and said, very earnestly:

"I wish I could see this man. I wish I knew
him. I have won over thousands of recruits in
my time, Alethea—thousands, who had only
their blood to give, and gave it. Money is as
precious as blood in a cause like ours. If we
had had but one million, eighteen months ago,
Italy would now have been free."

"Ah, you want me to help you—you want
Gervase to bring him here? Is that so?"

"Precisely."

"Well, I suppose it can be done—somehow."

"I think it can," replied Colonna. "I am
sure it can."

"And it might lead to great results?"

"It might—indeed it might."

"Your personal influence, I know, is almost
magical," mused Lady Castletowers; " and if
our millionnaire should prove to be young and
impressionable . . . ."

She hesitated. He looked up, and their eyes
met.

"Olimpia is very lovely," she said, smiling;
"and very fascinating."

"I have thought of that," he replied. "I
have thought of that; and Olimpia would never
marry any man who did not devote himself to
Italy, body and soul!"

"And purse," added Lady Castletowers,
quietly.

"And purse—of course," said he, with a
somewhat heightened colour.

"Then I will do what I can, dear old friend,
for your sake," said Lady Castletowers,
affectionately.

"And I," he replied, "will do what I can, for
the sake of the cause. God knows, Alethea,
that I do it for the cause alone—God knows how
pure my soul is of any other aim or end!"

"I am sure of it," she replied, abstractedly.

"Had I but the half of four or five millions
at command, the stake upon which I have set my
whole life, and my child's life, would be won.
Do you hear me, Alethea? would be, must be
won!"

"And shall be won, amico, if any help of
mine can avail you," said Lady Castletowers.
"I will speak to Gervase about it at once. He
shall ask both the cousins down."

"Best friend," murmured the Italian, taking
the hand which she extended to him, and
pressing it gratefully in both his own.

"But beware!—not a word to him of all this.
He has his English notions of hospitality—you
understand?"

"Yes—it is true."

"Adieu, then, till luncheon."

"Addio."

And the Countess, with a look of unusual
preoccupation on her fair brow, went slowly back
to the house, thinking of many things :—chiefly
of how her son should some day marry an
heiress, and how Olimpia Colonna should be
disposed of to Saxon Trefalden.

CHAPTER XV. SAXON DRAWS HIS FIRST CHEQUE.

A TALL young man stood at the first floor
window of a fashionable hotel in Piccadilly,
drumming upon the plate-glass panes, and
staring listlessly down upon the crowded street
below. It was about two o'clock in the day, and
the brilliant thoroughfare was all alive with
colour and sunshine; but his face took no
joyousness from the busy scene. It wore, on
the contrary, as gloomy and discontented an