CHAPTER LXXXI.
BROKEN.
“My hands were very full,” said the baron, displaying his stumpy fingers. “I received patients in this house; I had what you call many irons in ze fire. I was making napoleons then, I don't mind telling you, as fast as a man could run bullets. My minutes counted by the crown. It was in the month of May, 1844, late at night, a man called here, wanting to consult me. He called himself Herr von Konigsmark. I went down and saw him in my audience room. He knew I was to be depended upon. Such people tell one another who may be trusted. He told me he was an Austrian proscribed: very good. He proposed to place himself in my hands: very well. I looked him in the face—you have there exactly what I saw.”
He extended his hand toward the mask of Yelland Mace.
“‘You are an Austrian,’ I said, ‘a native subject of the empire?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘Italian?’
“‘No.’