Adelaide, "your suit is hopeless. Let the
subject be no more mentioned."

"Mademoiselle Morin!" cried Devaux,
impatiently; "you love another! You are
proud, Mademoiselle Morin, but—"

His speech was broken short by a violent
knocking at the street-door. It was
Monsieur Morin. He hastened into the room like
one distracted, threw an open letter upon the
table, and buried his face in his hands. Deep
and long-drawn sobs choked his utterance.

"Our kind, good master—come, Adelaide,
come to my breast, and weep your heart
away—the king is no more!"

While Monsieur Morin and his daughter
were locked in each other's arms, Richard
Devaux read the letter. In a few lines it
told of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth.

There was a settled resolve on Monsieur
Morin's brow when he spoke again.

"We had hoped," he said, "to avert this
blow. Our task must be to avenge it. Not
an hour must be lost. Everything, Devaux,
must be realised as soon as possible. You
will kindly excuse us now.  Adelaide and I
have a sad day's work to do.  There are dear
friends abroad who should learn the news of
to-day from none but ourselves."

Mademoiselle Morin said nothing.  She did
not even raise her eyes when Richard
Devaux took his leave.  Had she done so,
she might have marvelled at the singular
expression which his features wore.

IV.

DAYS of agitation passed for each of the
three persons whom this narrative most
concerns.  Events succeeded each other so
rapidly, that, within a month from the reception
of the news of the king's execution, war
against England had been declared by the
Convention, and a counter defiance hurled
against the regicide Government.  This
furnished full occupation for Monsieur Morin;
at whose house meetings were constantly
held to organise the expedition of an
emigrant force to operate on the coast of Britany,
under the command of the Marquis de
Grandmesnil, and his son Henri.  In all the
business connected with this expedition,
Mademoiselle Morin was indefatigable.  She
acted as her father's secretary, and something
more.  She had personal motives for
desiring the presence of the destined chiefs of
the expedition in London, and her letters to
that effect were urgent.  Richard Devaux, also,
had enough to occupy his thoughts.  Upon him
devolved the supply of the sinews of this
proposed warfare, derivable from the funds
which Monsieur Morin had lodged with his
house. This business, however, was not all
he had to think about; the scene between
Adelaide and himself being never absent
from his memory.

Undeterred by a first rejection, he was
bent on renewing his proposals. An idea,
not yet definitely shaped, had crossed his
mind, which pointed towards success; but,
before he encouraged it, there was a test to
which Adelaide Morin must yet be submitted.
He remembered that, when he abruptly
charged her with loving another, her countenance
changed; he also remembered what
Monsieur Morin had said in reference to the
dear friends who were absent; and these
recollections strengthened his first suspicion.
If Mademoiselle Morin wished her cause to
prosper, she must be his, and his alone.

Upon this resolution he acted on the first
occasion that offered of speaking to her again
without a witness to their conversation.
Vain, however, were all his words. With
still more haughtiness than before,
Mademoiselle Morin repelled his advances, and he
left her presence with that in his heart which
only wanted one assurance to change its feelings
to deadly hate. Accident supplied him
with it.

For greater security, in a time so fraught
with trouble to the French emigrants,
wherever they happened to have taken
refuge, it had been settled between Monsieur
Morin and Richard Devaux, that all the
correspondence having relation to the projected
descent upon the French shores, should pass
through the banker's firm.

On the day of his last interview with
Adelaide, when, with every angry passion at
war within him, he went back to the City to
bury himself in affairs, he found that a large
packet, with a foreign post-mark, had arrived.
The envelope bore his address alone: within
were at least a dozen letters, the greater
part directed to Monsieur Morin. As he
turned them over hastily, with the intention
of despatching them to their several destinations,
one letter caught his attention. It was
addressed, not to Monsieur Morin, but to his
daughter. On the seal was the letter H,
with this motto, in Gothic characters, "Plus
est en vous." Was the key to the enigma
here? Without a moment's pause, he tore
open the letter, and, though every word in it
danced before his eyes, he read it through, long
as it was, to the end.

"This, then," he muttered, "contains the
secret of my rejection. The 'dear friend'
is here.  Henri de Grandmesnil is her
accepted lover.  What tenderness!  What
constancy!  What ardent affection!  'To clasp
her again to his bosom!'  A husband could
scarcely say more.  A French husband, if all
I have heard be true, would never say so
much.  But whether true or false, Henri de
Grandmesnil, since that is your high-sounding
name, you shall never see her more, if I
can prevent the meeting.  But how?  Does
Morin know of this engagement?  He trusts
his daughter with everything:  she may have
done the same by him.  It is ambition
Royalist as he is, which leads him, perhaps,
to the hope of mingling his blood with that of
these high-born nobles.  Curses on them all!
The son of the old Bordeaux merchant is