solitude, fastened to the duty of a machine; Without sound of human voice, but that of my hard task-master! Without breathing the free air of Heaven; unless accompanied with lackies! Is this a fate, chosen by the Baron de Ripperda for his son, his only son? It is mockery, and I will not endure it."

The fever in his blood exaggerated to his perturbed mind every mysterious circumstance in his situation. He might be now the unconscious instrument of treason, or the cheated agent of political treachery. His father's confidence might be abused by the impenetrable Ignatius, and he be ignorant, alike of his son's being at Vienna, and of the illiterate drudgery to which he was consigned.

All this seemed the strange effect of Louis having seen Duke Wharton. But much sprung from a distempered imagination, and disordered nerves; the consequence of loneliness, want of exercise, and long confinement in a deleterious atmosphere. However, the sudden appearance of Wharton was certainly the circumstance which at once awoke all his sensibilities to the perception of his changed state; of the liberty he had been persuaded to relinquish, of the liberty he might, perhaps, regain by the Duke's interference. The last idea was a vague one, but still it was visible; it had a shadowy existence between hope and despair, and Louis clasped at the delusive shade.

A prey to these confused imaginations, he could not command either the desire or the power to resume his labours. Leaning his throbbing head upon the table, he allowed the gloom of black night to surround him; without even the wish to dispel it, by going into the adjoining room for one of the candles which had been for so many hours burning to waste.

As the old clock of the mansion struck ten, he was aroused from his moody position by a gleam of light. He looked up, and saw the Sieur Ignatius standing before him, with a lamp in his hand.

Louis started, disordered, from his chair.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked the Sieur, in a kindly voice; "I fear you are seriously ill."

Louis, in attempting to speak, was agitated to suffocation. Ignatius fixed his eyes on his haggard countenance.

"Your zeal has over-wrought your strength. Health is as necessary as will, to the completion of your duty. In these respects you must learn to be an economical, as well as a generous servant to your country; for that is the only way to be an efficient one. I see you have been too ill to prepare this night's papers."

The unusual interest in his feelings, which this address intimated; and the perfect confidence in his will to perform, what he had not done, smote on the heart of Louis; and, embarrassed and miserable, he bowed in silence.

"Sit down," continued the Sieur, evidently struck with the changed appearance of his charge; "I was improvident not to calculate on the ardour of your character, and give you orders to make pauses in your work, and take daily exercise in the garden. I ought to have thought on the garden before; for your walk of to-day without the walls, has already been productive of vexation. You have been seen, and to my great embarrassment, recognised. Have you any idea by whom?"

"By the Duke of Wharton," returned Louis, with all the recollections of that moment flushing his cheek; "I saw him on the Danube."

"And you saluted him first?" demanded Ignatius.

"No;" answered Louis, "but I turned to a voice calling on my name through the crowd, and met the eyes of my friend."

"And he recognised you, and you him?"

"We did."

"Mischief upon mischief!" ejaculated the Sieur, starting from his chair, and striding across the room in extraordinary discomposure. He turned suddenly upon Louis.—"So thoroughly did I believe you incapable of conduct so inconsistent with your awful engagements, that I have absolutely contradicted the mutual recognition. On being told of it to night by the Emperor's confessor, and the inferences drawn from the fact; I empowered him to affirm that he knew from an authority he could not dispute, that Louis de Montemar was not in Vienna; and that whoever had occasioned the report, must have mistaken some other person for the son of the Baron de Ripperda. Think then, faithless boy, into what a dilemma your recognition of Duke Wharton has brought the friend of your father! Into what a danger you have precipitated the cause, in which that father has embarked his fortunes and his life!"

"Sir," said Louis, with the dignity of conscious probity answering a man who had so lately put his affirmation to a falsehood; "my office here is inconsistent with my awful engagements. I bound myself to the dedication of all my talents, all the energies of my mind and heart, to the service of my father's country, now become mine; and to be obedient to him, as its agent. But I find myself, and all these talents, few or many, which have been the labour of my life to cultivate, chained down to the one mechanical act of writing on this table, in a character unknown to me, and on subjects concerning which I am as ignorant as the messenger that carries them to and fro! I am not treated with the confidence of a son, but the suspicion of a slave; and I have my doubts that I am really so degraded by the commands of my father."

"This is new language Louis de Montemar! You have spoken with the Duke of Wharton. He knows all that you know: and he has put this complexion on the affair! well he knows how to sap and to overturn—and a fit agent for a father's ruin, he has found in the son of the Baron de Ripperda."

As the terrible Ignatius delivered this, he approached close to Louis, and seizing his arm, fixed on him his powerful eyes, as if to look into his soul.

"I can bear your scrutiny, Sir," said he, "were you to rip open my breast with the poniard your hand rests upon. It is not in me to betray any man. I have not spoken with Duke Wharton."

"And you must not," returned the Sieur, recovering his presence of mind, and dropping his hand from the dagger's hilt he had unconsciously grasped; "you must avoid, avoid even the chance of his seeing you again. You are ill, and you are moody. You require air and action; and you shall have them: but henceforth they must be found in the garden of the Chateau. Be obedient to this necessity; and I will forget the phrenzied language, which, if not Wharton, some demon must have conjured, to betray your reason and your duty."

"Sir," replied Louis, in great emotion; "I do not wish you to forget it. I wish you to answer me to all its points. I wish to know at once, whether I am a trusted servant, or an abused slave? Trust me, and that labour will be happiness—distinction!—which is now misery, and degradation insupportable!"

For some time the lofty Ignatius regarded his pupil's almost convulsed features with a steady perusal of their varying expressions.—At last, putting his hand on the shoulder of Louis, he said in a calm voice; "Compose yourself; and listen to me. Hear from my lips, truths that must be your future guide in the destiny you have chosen; but to combat with the evils of which, you come totally unprovided. You have educated yourself for the service of your country.—You are full of ardour to engage in it. But how? Not as she directs; but as yourself chuses. You would fight her battles in the field of blood; you would fill her cars of triumph! But you disdain to watch for her in secret, to labour in obscurity for her ultimate peace. This last, is virtue in her purest simplicity; and, therefore, your