"And," remarked the ambassador quietly to Sir Charles, in a private interview they had together, "the peace will come, and, if I am not deceived, the Stuarts will go. The Chevalier de St. George at Rome knows such to be the case; so does the Prince here; only they do not run away from the storm. Time enough for that when it breaks; anyhow, it won't be particularly hurtful--will only, indeed, lead to a residence in Paris being exchanged for the capital of some other country. Yes, everything points to peace--has begun, indeed, to do so for some time back. Now," and his Excellency leaned forward and spoke very gravely, "this Fordingbridge episode must not disturb that impending peace."
"No one wishes that it should do so," Sir Charles exclaimed; "we only desire a little information. He had a wife, and, although he had behaved as a thorough scoundrel to her, is it not natural that she should wish to know what his crime was, and what prison he was confined in before the morning when he was taken to what was intended for his execution?"
"Perfectly natural," replied the ambassador, with easy grace, "perfectly natural on her part. Only, how is the information to be obtained? I tell you frankly I cannot procure it for you. Lord Fordingbridge was, in London, what they term here 'a suspect'; he was under Government surveillance there; known to be a late Jacobite avowing Hanoverian principles--yet known also, of late, to have been one of the prime movers, if not the prime mover, in the attempted assassination of his Majesty before the invasion. Also he was known--I assure you," the ambassador interjected still more gravely, as he bent forward, "everything was known about him--to be the friend of Charles Edward's followers, yet to be, also, their denouncer. He disappeared from England, no one knew why, closed up his house, wrote to his attorney to say he should probably not return for many years, and also that the lady who had passed as the viscountess was not so in actual fact."
"It was a lie!" exclaimed Sir Charles.
"Without doubt," the diplomatist continued suavely. "I only mention all these things to show you that we need not trouble our soon-to-be-beloved French neighbours about the Viscount Fordingbridge, especially as, after all, it was a higher power than they who slew him. Remember, he plotted to kill the King; he was Hanoverian or Jacobite as it suited him; in fact, Sir Charles, he was contemptible. Let us forget him."
"Everyone is perfectly willing to do so, I assure your Excellency," the baronet replied, in quite as easy a manner as the other was capable of assuming; "he is quite done with on all sides. Only someone else has to be remembered who is supposed to be in the prison he was led out from--someone whose freedom many of us desire to procure."
"An Englishman, of course?"
"Yes. Not precisely so, though. A Scotchman, and----"
"A Jacobite, perhaps?" the ambassador asked with a sweet smile.
"There have been tendencies----"