"Indeed! And I'm answerable for that, I suppose? I think I made up my share. You seem to forget the selling of my gold watch, my rings and bracelets--even to my poor pencil-case?"

"Who gave them to you?"

"Indeed! it's like you to remember it! I wish I had never accepted them."

"And I that I had never given them."

"Wretch!"

"Oh! you're very good at calling names--ugly ones, too."

"I'll call you an uglier still, _coward_!"

This stung him. Perhaps the only epithet that would; for he not only felt that it was true, but that his wife knew it.

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning suddenly red.

"What I say; that you're a coward--you know you are. You can safely insult a woman; but when a man stands up you daren't--no, you daren't say boo to a goose. Remember Maynard?"

It was the first time the taunt had been openly pronounced; though on more than one occasion since the scenes in Newport, she had thrown out hints of a knowledge of that scheme by which he had avoided meeting the man named. He supposed she had only suspicions, and could know nothing of that letter delivered too late. He had taken great pains to conceal the circumstances. From what she now said, it was evident she knew all.

And she did; for James, the waiter, and other servants, had imparted to her the gossip of the hotel; and this, joined to her own observation of what had transpired, gave the whole story. The suspicion that she knew it had troubled Swinton--the certainty maddened him.

"Say that again!" he cried, springing to his feet; "say it again, and by G--, I'll smash in your skull?"

With the threat he had raised one of the cane chairs, and held it over her head.

Throughout their oft-repeated quarrels, it had never before come to this--the crisis of a threatened blow.

She was neither large nor strong--only beautiful--while the bully was both. But she did not believe he intended to strike; and she felt that to quail would be to acknowledge herself conquered. Even to fail replying to the defiance.

She did so, with additional acerbity.

"Say what again? Remember Maynard? I needn't say it; you're not likely to forget him!"

The words had scarce passed from her lips before she regretted them. At least she had reason: for with a crash, the chair came down upon her head, and she was struck prostrate upon the floor!

CHAPTER THIRTY.

INSIDE THE TUILERIES.

There is a day in the annals of Paris, that to the limits of all time will be remembered with shame, sorrow, and indignation.

And not only by the people of Paris, but of France--who on that day ceased to be free.

To the Parisians, more especially, was it a day of lamentation; and its anniversary can never pass over the French capital without tears in every house, and trembling in every heart.

It was the _Second of December_, 1851.

On the morning of that day five men were met within a chamber of the Tuileries. It was the same chamber in which we have described a conspiracy as having been hatched some months before.

The present meeting was for a similar purpose; but, notwithstanding a coincidence in the number of the conspirators, only one of them was the same. This was the president of the former conclave--the President of France!

And there was another coincidence equally strange--in their titles; for there was a count, a field-marshal, a diplomatist, and a duke, the only difference being that they were now all of one nation--all Frenchmen.

They were the Count de M., the Marshal Saint A., the Diplomatist La G., and the Duke of C.

Although, as said, their purpose was very similar, there was a great difference in the men and their mode of discussing it. The former five have been assimilated to a gang of burglars who had settled the preliminaries for "cracking a crib." Better might this description apply to the conspirators now in session; and at a still later period, when the housebreakers are about entering on the "job."

Those had conspired with a more comprehensive design--the destruction of Liberty throughout all Europe. These were assembled with similar aim, though it was confined to the liberties of France.

In the former case, the development seemed distant, and would be brought about by brave soldiers fighting on the battle-field. In the latter the action was near, and was entrusted to cowardly assassins in the streets, already prepared for the purpose.

The mode by which this had been done will be made manifest, by giving an account of the scenes that were passing in the chambers occupied by the conspirators.

There was no _persiflage_ of speech, or exchange of light drolleries, as in that conclave enlivened by the conversation of the English viscount.

The time was too serious for joking; the occasion for the contemplated murder too near.

Nor was there the same tranquillity in the chamber. Men came and went; officers armed and in full uniform. Generals, colonels, and captains were admitted into the room, as if by some sign of freemasonry, but only to make reports or receive orders, and then out again.

And he who gave these orders was not the President of France, commander-in-chief of its armies, but another man of the five in that room, and for the time greater than he!

It was the Count de M.

But for him, perhaps, that conspiracy might never have been carried to a success, and France might still have been free!

It was a strange, terrible crisis, and the "man of a mission," standing back to the fire, with split coat tails, was partially appalled by it.

Despite repeated drinks, and the constant smoking of a cigar, he could not conceal the tremor that was upon him.

De M--saw it, and so did the murderer of Algerine Arabs, once strolling-player, now field-marshal of France.

"Come!" cried the sinful but courageous Count, "there must be no half measures--no weak backslidings! We've resolved upon this thing, and we must go through with it! Which of you is afraid?"

"Not I," answered Saint A.

"Nor I," said La G--, _ci-devant_ billiard-sharper of Leicester Square, London.

"I'm not afraid," said the Duke. "But do you think it is right?"

His grace was the only man of the five who had a spark of humanity in his heart. A poor weak man, he was only allied with the others in the intimacy of a fast friendship.

"Right?" echoed La G--. "What's wrong in it? Would it be right to let this _canaille_ of demagogues rule Paris--France? That's what it'll come to if we don't act. Now, or never, say I!"

"And I!"

"And all of us?"