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confidence,' she told him later on. 'I know the fellow well. He used to carry despatches to my sister of Spain, and to Portugal, when I was at Massa.'

That evening Lucien received a note from the marquis.

'Come to Paris as soon as she has left,' thus it ran. 'Ask for me in Montmartre at the Hotel of the Three Elephants. Do not answer this.'

'As soon as she has left-ah!'

Because of Madame, Lucien was growing fonder and fonder of his bare room high up among the deserted attics of the Castle. Because of Madame, he laboured to forget-he almost did forget the deep eyes of Céline, and René dead in the flower of youth. The love of Blum was gone from him as though it had not been, and Jeanne passed like a shadow from his remembrance. Only now and again the dead, by that strange power they have, compelled him to remember. At such moments he wondered if Madame forgot. Because of her, the hope of fame burnt red as never in life before.

Hugo was the only man of whom he felt much afraid-Hugo the Victor, Hugo the ineffable poet, who had weak eyes and lived in Paris.

Béranger was old; Alexandre Dumas as yet a mere name to him. Hugo, however not to speak of 'Marion '-had written ‘Les Orientales' and 'Hernani,' and he was understood to be at work upon another play, 'Le Roi s'Amuse,' finer than any of these, to be acted at the Théâtre Français some time in November.

'Go to him the night his new play comes out, when all the flatterers have done, and say—'

Lucien had not forgotten his promise to René. Before the final moment came, he must write something that would live. He dared not see the greater poet till this was done. He must write something not unworthy of Madame. He wrote and wrote until the pen dropped from stiff fingers; but what he wrote— whether it was good, bad, or indifferent-will never be known, for seven days after it was written he always put it into the fire. His Songs came to him of themselves; he had to go far afield for his Plays, and when he had found them, they were not his, but Victor Hugo's.

Nothing daunted, he began again upon a great success as soon as he had destroyed the last failure.

Now he was carried away with delight, now overwhelmed by dejection. He shrank with sensitive terror from the thought that Madame should even suspect his labours. When the hour struck, he would lay his triumph at her feet. In common with the rest of the Romantic School, he was studying the reign of Elizabeth. He saw himself a new Spenser, if not yet quite a Shakespeare, at the Court of the Faery Queen.

No sovereign ever ruled a more bewildered kingdom than was hers now, a kingdom of night, of shadows, that existed only in the sun's absence.

Lucien, as was his custom, had caught a fancy from some true aspect; his heroine was the Lady of a land that vanished every morning at sunrise, to reappear with the rising moon.

'A Prince among the Shades while he was still alive on earth!' said the duchess one day, when she read in the paper the death of Napoleon's only son, the duc de Reichstadt. 'Oh, Lucien, will my son's fate be his?'

'No, Madame!' said Lucien firmly; for he felt sure that miracles were among the most common events in the world.

In the rare moments that she had to spare, when she was neither painting, papering, nor corresponding, the duchess would make him read aloud her favourite Waverley Novels. Together they mourned the death of Scott that year. Together their cheeks flushed, their eyes glowed, over the adventures of Morton, of Frank Osbaldistone, of Darsie, and Alan Fairford. The lyrics of Waverley' and of 'The Heart of Midlothian' drove all the heroes and heroines out of Lucien's head. And then Madame, deciding that he had not attended to the plot, would say severely: 'I prefer deeds to words.'

Mesdemoiselles du Guiny would bend low over the wreaths on their embroidery-frames to hide a smile.

Deferring to their guest in all serious affairs, they treated her in lesser matters as a beloved child; and she repaid them with the gentle playfulness that made life under the same roof with her a merry business. Their little interests became hers, as her great interests were theirs. Lucien moved in a charmed circle of sweetness.

And so the roses waned, the spotted lilies carrying the seven spears that were, Madame said reverently, 'the Seven Sorrows of Mary' followed; and in the gardens of Nantes thistles pushed up their balls of spiky blue, and travellers' joy starred the cracked walls with purple.

Lucien knew little of the outward changes of Nature, though he went late to bed and rose early. He was compassed round with forms of fire at night and

the fiery rising of the sun drew him day by day to his window; but for the most part he was fast asleep with his eyes open, and saw nothing but a world of dreams and one face.

Early in August Achille Guibourg had escaped from the Prison Neuve, walking out in the face of a dozen soldiers ready to fire on any prisoner who attempted to make his exit. He remained hidden with de Charette, who had assisted him, first in one house, then in another; and they both came, now and again, under cover of night, to the parlour at No. 3, rue Haute-duChâteau. Finally Achille Guibourg took up his abode there.

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'It is always on the rainy nights that they come, never when it is fine,' said the only person who watched outside the house. But he goes always, whether it is wet or fine, only he waits until it is dark, and every night he comes away by a different street. Where does he live, I wonder?'

There was but one being called he in Mademoiselle Jeanne's vocabulary, and that was Lucien. She believed that the marquis was hidden in the old house.

She had heard from others of his conduct in the fight at la Pénissière, and she remembered enough to feel something stronger than a suspicion that he had friends at Nantes.

So, while the clematis was still in flower, Michaelmas daisies began, and the chrysanthemums thrust forth their red and gold.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE OTHER POSTMAN

'THE letter is not signed,' said the Minister of the Interior; but, then, they never are! Important State secrets-it sounds well, it sounds well, Charles Blum. There is one that I would give a thousand pounds to know just now, and that is, where the duchess of Berry sleeps to-night. Louis-Philippe's house is not safe. Constitutional monarchy will never rest on a solid foundation so long as that Will-o'-the-wisp is free to wander. Well, she has not left France! The note you posted to your friend over the wall stopped that. She has had no opportunity since. Every port is watched. Have you any idea what became of your friend after the fight at la Pénissière? His name was not among the killed.'

'I believe him to be hiding in la Vendée.' Have you any reasons?'

If

Now, Blum could not endure bewilderment. reasons were not forthcoming, he made them. 'Wherever the duchess may be, he is not far off. The safest course for her would be la Vendée.'

'She is a woman,' said Thiers, his Southern accent sounding more strongly than usual, as it did when he became animated. 'A woman does not take the safest course. I have no great opinion of female genius. What do you yourself think of the duchess? Has she genius?'

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