"What was your name then, if not Lord Glisfoyle?" she broke in.
"Ferdinand Carbonnell, the younger son of my late father."
"Ferdinand Carbonnell! Ah, then——" the sentence remained unfinished, and I stood in silence watching her and waiting for the conclusion. I could guess her thought.
"Ferdinand Carbonnell is a well-known Carlist leader, Lord Glisfoyle," and she spoke in a tone that augured but ill for my success.
"And for that Carlist leader I was mistaken, your Majesty, and working through that strange mistake, Providence enabled me to rescue your son from a far worse fate than that which any Carlist ever designed. In following this strange double career I carried my life in my hands, risking misunderstanding at the hands of your Majesty's agents, and putting my life to the hazard of any Carlist discovery of my real character."
"You cannot doubt him, mother," cried the King, protestingly.
"You have said too much or too little, my lord. I beg you to speak frankly."
"I would ask your Majesty by whose advice it was that your son came to be in such a case as made this attempt possible?" I said; and the question went home, for she started quickly.
"By the advice of my Ministers, who felt that our confidence in the people should be shown in a way which all could see for themselves. Do you propose to arraign my Government on a charge of treason?"
"I do not arraign your Government as a whole, your Majesty; but what if it were proved to you that one of them, discontented with his present power and influence, great though they be, had aimed to make them greater; had thought that under the Republican form of Government there were wider scope for his ambition; and had planned, therefore, a double stroke of policy—say, for instance, the removal of your son from the Throne, using the Carlists for his purpose, and at the same time preparing to crush their power when he had used them, employing the very pretext of the plot as the cause of his drastic measures of repression? What if there be a man in your confidence who designed to overthrow the Monarchy, and climb on the ruins of the Throne to the place of supreme power in the country as President of a Republic to be proclaimed? What if these plans were all laid and settled in every detail; and yet made with such consummate skill and shrewdness, that even the crumbling of the corner-stone—this attempt on His Majesty—still left him higher, firmer, and stronger in position and influence than ever? What if the subtle organisation by which this Carlist rising has been crushed almost in a day was the outcome, not of a desire to save His Majesty's throne from attack, but of an intention to break down what—should the Monarchy be no longer in existence—would have been the one remaining possible obstacle to this man's success? Would your Majesty say that these Carlists or the arch-plotter were the more to be feared, the more culpable, the more dangerous?"