“My lord,” said the Comte de la Fere, “you are an noble Englishman, you are a loyal man; you are speaking to a noble Frenchman, to a man of heart.  The gold contained in these two casks before us, I have told you was mine.  I was wrong — it is the first lie I have pronounced in my life, a temporary lie, it is true.  This gold is the property of King Charles II., exiled from his country, driven from his palaces, the orphan at once of his father and his throne, and deprived of everything, even of the melancholy happiness of kissing on his knees the stone upon which the hands of his murderers have written that simple epitaph which will eternally cry out for vengeance upon them:  — ‘HERE LIES CHARLES I.’”

Monk grew slightly pale, and an imperceptible shudder crept over his skin and raised his gray mustache.

“I,” continued Athos, “I, Comte de la Fere, the last, only faithful friend the poor abandoned prince has left, I have offered him to come hither to find the man upon whom now depends the fate of royalty and of England; and I have come, and placed myself under the eye of this man, and have placed myself naked and unarmed in his hands, saying:  — ’My lord, here are the last resources of a prince whom God made your master, whom his birth made your king; upon you, and you alone, depend his life and future.  Will you employ this money in consoling England for the evils it must have suffered from anarchy; that is to say, will you aid, and if not aid, will you allow King Charles II. to act?  You are master, you are king, all-powerful master and king, for chance sometimes defeats the work of time and God.  I am here alone with you, my lord:  if divided success alarms you, if my complicity annoys you, you are armed, my lord, and here is a grave ready dug; if, on the contrary, the enthusiasm of your cause carries you away, if you are what you appear to be, if your hand in what it undertakes obeys your mind, and your mind your heart, here are the means of ruining forever the cause of your enemy, Charles Stuart.  Kill, then, the man you have before you, for that man will never return to him who has sent him without bearing with him the deposit which Charles I., his father, confided to him, and keep the gold which may assist in carrying on the civil war.  Alas! my lord, it is the fate of this unfortunate prince.  He must either corrupt or kill, for everything resists him, everything repulses him, everything is hostile to him; and yet he is marked with divine seal, and he must, not to belie his blood, reascend the throne, or die upon the sacred soil of his country.’

“My lord, you have heard me.  To any other but the illustrious man who listens to me, I would have said:  ’My lord, you are poor; my lord, the king offers you this million as an earnest of an immense bargain; take it, and serve Charles II. as I served Charles I., and I feel assured that God, who listens to us, who sees us, who alone reads in your heart, shut up from all human eyes, — I