VII
The "Duc de Nevers"
"And God gives to every man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill."
—"The Task"—COWPER.
One morning there lay on my desk a note finely written in pencil and dated:
TOMBS PRISON.
MONSIEUR:
Will you be so gracious as to extend to the undersigned the courtesy of a private interview in your office? I have a communication of the highest importance to make to you.
Respectfully,
CHARLES JULIUS FRANCIS DE NEVERS.
Across the street in the courtyard the prisoners were taking their daily exercise. Two by two they marched slowly around the enclosure in the centre of which a small bed of geraniums struggled bravely in mortal combat with the dust and grime of Centre Street. Some of the prisoners walked with heads erect and shoulders thrown back, others slouched along with their arms dangling and their chins resting upon their chests. When one of them failed to keep up with the rest, a keeper, who stood in the shade by a bit of ivy in a corner of the wall, got after him. Somehow the note on the desk did not seem to fit any one of the gentry whom I could see so distinctly from my window. The name, too, did not have the customary Tombs sound—De Nevers? De Nevaire—I repeated it slowly to myself with varying accent. It seemed as though I had known the name before. It carried with it a suggestion of the novels of Stanley J. Weyman, of books on old towns and the châteaux and cathedrals of France. I wondered who the devil Charles Julius Francis de Nevers could be.