Englishman just at this moment! But some Englishman of correspondent
rank I trust, or at least one known for opinions opposed to what an
Austrian would call Revolutionary doctrines?"

"I know nothing. But it was supposed merely a private gentleman of good
family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Court dictate a
marriage to the daughter as a condition for grace to the father?"

"No,--not that!" said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But put yourself in
the position of any minister to one of the great European monarchies.
Suppose a political insurgent, formidable for station and wealth, had
been proscribed, much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party
striving against it; and just when the minister is disposed to relent, he
hears that the heiress to this wealth and this station is married to the
native of a country in which sentiments friendly to the very opinions for
which the insurgent was proscribed are popularly entertained, and thus
that the fortune to be restored may be so employed as to disturb the
national security, the existing order of things,--this, too, at the very
time when a popular revolution has just occurred in France, and its
effects are felt most in the very land of the exile;--suppose all this,
and then say if anything could be more untoward for the hopes of the
banished man, or furnish his adversaries with stronger arguments against
the restoration of his fortune? But pshaw! this must be a chimera! If
true, I should have known of it."

[As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be
convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story,
Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X.
and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.]