"Adela," he said, in the formal and rather cold accent which both his wife and child had come to associate with something painful or unpleasant, "I should like you to read this,"--then he added: "Well, no, I think I will ask you to listen, while I translate it," and slowly he read, choosing his words with some care, anxious to render every shade of meaning, the following sentences, composing one of the happily-named "Echoes" printed on the front page of the _Figaro_, the then newly-established, brilliant journal which had become the most widely read paper in French society:-- "Her Majesty the Empress to-day received in private audience Madame Sampiero, _née_ Rebell, one of the most sympathetic and distinguished of English great ladies, and this in spite of the fact that the name of Sampiero is full of glorious memories to those who know and care--and what good Frenchman does not do so?--for the noble traditions of Corsican history. Mylady Sampiero"--here Barbara's father suddenly lowered the paper and, glancing at his wife, gave a queer sardonic laugh--"was presented subsequently to his Majesty the Emperor by the noted English statesman, Mylord Bosworth, who, it will be remembered, was on terms of intimacy with our Sovereign when he, as Prince Louis Napoleon, was living a life of exile in London. Indeed, it was Mylord who first gratified the London world with the news that the prisoner of Ham had escaped." There was a slight pause: Mr. Rebell laid the _Figaro_ down on a gilt-rimmed table which stood close to his wife's chair. "Well?" he said, "what do you think of that? You'll see it dished up, and who can wonder at it, in next week's _Vanity Fair_!" The child, sitting out on the balcony, saw her mother's pale face become gradually suffused with colour, and she heard the almost whispered words, "Yes, most unfortunate! But, my dear, how could poor Bar have foreseen such a thing?" "Of course Bar did not foresee this, but equally of course Bosworth must have supplied the _Figaro_ with the main facts--how else could this absurdly worded note have been written?" He added slowly, "This is obviously Bosworth's idea of a rebuff to the Embassy--Ah well! I didn't mean to tell you, but I had it from Daman yesterday that Barbara, immediately on her arrival in Paris, had been sent word that she must not expect, this time, to be received at the Embassy." As he spoke Richard Rebell walked up and down the room with quick, rather mincing steps: again he came and stood before his wife: "Our name dragged in!" he exclaimed, "apropos of nothing!" a note of sharp chagrin and disgust piercing in his quiet voice. "And this ridiculous, this farcical reference to that adventurer, if indeed Sampiero is the man's real name, of which I always had my doubts!"