The Emperor was the idol of the day--the names of Jules Favre and
Gambetta were by-words of scorn. Even Armand Monnier, still out of work,
beginning to feel the pinch of want, and fierce for any revolution that
might turn topsy-turvy the conditions of labour,--even Armand Monnier was
found among groups that were laying immortelles at the foot of the column
in the Place Vendome, and heard to say to a fellow malcontent, with eyes
uplifted to the statue of the First Napoleon, "Do you not feel at this
moment that no Frenchman can be long angry with the Little Corporal? He
denied La Liberte, but he gave La Gloire."

Heeding not the stir of the world without, Graham was compelling into one
resolve the doubts and scruples which had so long warred against the
heart which they ravaged, but could not wholly subdue.

The conversations with Mrs. Morley and Rochebriant had placed in a light
in which he had not before regarded it, the image of Isaura.

He had reasoned from the starting-point of his love for her, and had
sought to convince himself that against that love it was his duty to
strive.

But now a new question was addressed to his conscience as well as to his
heart. What though he had never formally declared to her his affection--
never, in open words, wooed her as his own--never even hinted to her the
hopes of a union which at one time he had fondly entertained,--still was
it true that his love had been too transparent not to be detected by her,
and not to have led her on to return it?

Certainly he had, as we know, divined that he was not indifferent to her: