"And she behaved herself that day
As if she had never walkt the way."

Kophetua\'s disappearance did little to allay the storm that was brewing in the political world. For, of course, it was very soon known that he had disappeared. News was scarce in Oneiria, and greedily sought for. To keep such a savoury morsel from the maw of the quidnuncs was even beyond Captain Pertinax\'s powers.

The simultaneous escape of the beggar-maid was naturally mentioned. Not that the informers wished to suggest any scandalous inferences, but merely in the interests of justice. Those who were not in the secret of her connection with the King had inexhaustible information on the point of a most authentic type. The few who knew carefully held their peace.

The Queen-mother, labouring under her unhappy misconception of the case, was heart-broken. The move she had been so proud of had brought about the very [Pg 292]catastrophe she dreaded. She was inconsolable, and in a few days retired to her country house, and refused to see any one.

As for Turbo, he was not a little anxious. His respect for the King was considerably increased by recent events, and he had a suspicion that Kophetua meant to spring a bride on him after all. He consulted his fellow-conspirator, and found that the Marquis had received the matter with his usual light-hearted confidence.

"It is merely a question of hastening the revolution a little," said M. de Tricotrin airily. "We must resolve the Council into a Committee of Safety, call a Convention Parliament, declare the throne vacant, and pass our Provisional Constitution. Nothing is simpler. On the whole, this new situation improves our prospects."

M. de Tricotrin ran off his programme as glibly as though a revolution were no more difficult than the arrangement of so many pleasant little parties, for which it was merely necessary to send out notes of invitation. Turbo was not so confident. General Dolabella was sounded. He had joined the triumvirate on the express understanding that nothing violent or precipitate or vulgar was to be done. He had been assured that the revolution should not so much as break the skin of the constitution; and he adhered. Now, to the Marquis\'s proposition, he offered an unqualified dissent.

[Pg 293]

"Create your committee," he said, "if you like. I have no objection; but I cannot answer for my party, nor for the army nor the Church, if the Convention Parliament meets a day sooner than the natural end of his majesty\'s reign; and I must insist that, before taking any steps whatever, some official effort be made to discover the fate of the King."

Being commander-in-chief the General had to be humoured. As a conspirator, he was not a success. He was full of vanity and nervousness; and every one knows that is a union which breeds nothing so much as obstruction. He himself pardonably mistook the two qualities which he brought to the revolutionary councils for self-reliance and vigilance. He was always making a fuss; and, in order to remove the obstacles which he raised with prodigal fertility, Turbo and the Marquis found it more and more necessary to let him into their confidence.

The idea of the conspirators was naturally enough a republic on the Roman lines. The classics were popular at the time, and the Dual Consulate seemed peculiarly adapted for tiding over the real question which was nearest their hearts. For, of course, both Turbo and the Marquis merely regarded a republic as the foundation for a tyranny which each of them intended for himself; and had not the General\'s vanity been fathomless, he would have been overwhelmed[Pg 294] with the caresses which each of his colleagues showered upon him, with a view to obtaining an ally when the final struggle began.

Meanwhile everything went on as smoothly as could be expected. The conspirators and their immediate partisans anticipated no difficulty in inducing the House to accept the new constitution. The consular form seemed to remove every difficulty. Turbo would represent the Kallist party; de Tricotrin, who had quite stepped into the shoes of the Queen-mother since her retirement, the Agathist. It was agreed that they were to be the first two consuls; while the General was to be flattered and his party consoled with the Presidency of the Senate. Dolabella was also to retain his present offices, with an enlarged salary, in view of his past services and increasing family.

So very attractive, indeed, was the prospect which the Chancellor and the Marquis had sketched out, that they were both desperately anxious to see it put in with permanent colours. They lost no time in fulfilling the General\'s preliminary condition—a commission was appointed to report on the disappearance of the King and the chances of his return. Voluminous evidence was taken; but the only fragment of it all that was of any value was the testimony of Captain Pertinax, and he protested that he neither knew nor could guess anything of his master\'s movements.

[Pg 295]

The commission promptly reported itself a failure. Theoretically, the King\'s person no longer existed. He was a factor that could now be eliminated from the problem. It was done without delay; the Committee of Safety began to sit, and the General\'s nervousness was redoubled.

Yet he was not without his consolation, and he availed himself of it almost intemperately. To every new cajolery which Turbo could invent to win over the Commander-in-chief, M. de Tricotrin had one overwhelming answer, and that was his daughter. Mlle de Tricotrin, having been initiated into the whole plot, consented to obey her father\'s instructions, and make desperate love to the soft-hearted General, or rather to allow him to make love to her.

Could anything have added to the unhappy girl\'s misery, it would have been this. The old beau\'s gallantries were insufferable after the splendid homage of Kophetua; and the abasement under which she groaned at having to endure them with a smile was proportional to the self-respect which the King\'s chivalrous admiration had revived. She hated and despised herself more than ever. The memory of Penelophon\'s betrayal pricked and scourged her into a deep melancholy. By it she had lost not only the new-born faith in herself, but her earthly paradise as well. Fo............