“You are then the Chevalier De Palissandre?” murmured the grand-nephew of the Guises by the female line, who had fallen upon the little bench from a faintness he in vain endeavored to overcome.
“I inherited the title of count on the death of my two brothers, but you, sir—may I believe—my eyes do not deceive me!—those features! Oh, speak once more—you are—”
“Yes, count. I am—I am your ancient rival—”
“Oh, joy! Heaven is just—it would not let me perish without seeing him once more. Oh! if you knew, my dear baron, how often since your departure from France—your flight I may call it—I have cursed the ill-fortune which did not allow me to arrive in London in time to join you—I was acquainted with the rascality of your banker, and not wishing to entrust to his hands the fortune which you had left in your carriage, I hastened after you to inform you of it—to advise you of your danger of loss through him in time to remedy it. Missing you there, I did not feel myself relieved of the obligation to seek you. I followed you to the Havana—I pursued your traces, but meeting contrary winds and tempests, the vessel in which I embarked failed to overtake you, and I was obliged to renounce the dearest object of my life.”
“Well, chevalier—that is to say, sir count—pardon me the neglect. Take the hand I offer you, and let us bless the good fortune which permits us to meet in our unhappy circumstances, in which we both have need of the friendly offices of the other.”
“What the devil do you say, D’Anspach?” cried the count, crushing in his own the offered hand of the major. “What do you say about unhappy circumstances? There are none hereafter for you, my friend—you are rich, devilish rich—I believe, devil take me! that you are a monstrous millionaire!”
The old major fixed his eye on De Palissandre in stupid astonishment.
“Notwithstanding your surprise, it is nevertheless true,” continued the count, “for despairing of ever seeing you again, I took the only course which remained, which was to wait until you should yourself return to seek your 300,000 francs. But not wishing to resemble the bad servant in the parable who buried his talent in the earth, and not believing your money safe in France, I returned to London, placed your little fortune in the hands of one of my friends connected with the East Company—and remember, major, that forty years have passed away since that! May I go to the devil, if I can pretend to tell you what the honorable baronet has done to multiply your francs; but his son, who succeeded him in business fifteen years ago, and with whom I have corresponded since my return from Russia, wrote me the other day that the funds invested in the house of Ashburton & Co. amounted to nearly eight hundred thousand pounds sterling—twenty millions of francs! It seems like a fairy tale!”