'Colonel O'Grady is in the drawing-room,' said a servant in a low voice to me at this instant; and leaving Lord Dudley to speculate on the contingencies of his having 'backed the red,' I joined my friend, whom I had not seen on the previous day. We were alone, and in ten minutes I explained to him the entire discovery I had fallen upon, concealing only my affection for Louisa Bellew, which I could not bring myself even to allude to.

'I see,' said Phil, when I concluded—'I see you are half disposed to forgive De Vere all his rascality. Now, what a different estimate we take of men! Perhaps—I can't say—it is because I am an Irishman, but I lean to the bold-faced villain Burke; the miserable, contemptible weakness of the one is far more intolerable to me than the ruffian effrontery of the other. Don't forget the lesson I gave you many a year ago: a fool is always a blackguard. Now, if that fellow could see his companion this minute, there is not a circumstance he has noticed here that he would not retail if it bore to your disadvantage. Untouched by your kindness to him, he would sell you—ay, to the very man you saved him from! But, after all, what have we to do with him? Our first point is to rescue this poor girl's name from being ever mixed with his; anything further is, of course, out of the question. The Rooneys are going back: I saw Paul this morning. “The Cruiskeen Lawn” has been their ruin. All the Irish officers who had taken Madame de Roni for an illustrious stranger have found out the true scent; and so many distinguished persons are involved in the ridicule of their parties that the old chef de police, my friend, has sent them a private order to leave Paris in a week. Paul is in raptures at it. He has spent eighteen thousand in two months; detests the place; is dying to be back in Dublin; and swears that except one Cossack officer he hasn't met a pleasant fellow since he came abroad.'

'And Mrs. Paul?'

'Oh, the old story. I put Guilemain up to it, and he has hinted that the Empress of Russia has heard of the Czar's attentions; that there's the devil to pay in St. Petersburg; and that if she doesn't manage to steal out of Paris slyly, some confounded boyard or other will slip a sack over her head and carry her off to Tobolsk.

Elizabeth and the Exiles has formed part of her reading, and Madame de Roni will dream every night of the knout till she reaches her dear native land.—But now to business. I, too, have made my discoveries since we met. De Vere's high play has been a matter of surprise to all who know him. I have found out his secret—he plays with forged billets de banque.'

'And has the wretched fellow gone so far as this?'

'He doesn't know it; he believes that the money is the proceeds of bills he has given to Burke, who affects to get them discounted. See here—here are a handful of their notes. Guillemain knows all, and retains the secret as a hold over Burke, whose honesty to himself he already suspects. If he catch him tripping——'

'Then——'

'Why, then, the galleys for life. Such is the system; a villain with them is worthless if his life isn't at their disposal Satan's bond completely—all, all. But show me De Vere's room, and leave me alone with him for half an hour. Let us then meet at my hotel, and concert future measures.'

Having left O'Grady with De Vere, I walked out upon the boulevards, my head full of the extraordinary facts so suddenly thronging one upon the other. A dash of hope, that for many a day had not visited me, was now mingled through all my meditations, and I began to think that there was yet a chance of happiness for me.