"Perfectly natural," replied the ambassador, with easy grace, "perfectly natural on her part. Only, how is the information to be obtained? I tell you frankly I cannot procure it for you. Lord Fordingbridge was, in London, what they term here 'a suspect'; he was under Government surveillance there; known to be a late Jacobite avowing Hanoverian principles--yet known also, of late, to have been one of the prime movers, if not _the_ prime mover, in the attempted assassination of his Majesty before the invasion. Also he was known--I assure you," the ambassador interjected still more gravely, as he bent forward, "everything was known about him--to be the friend of Charles Edward's followers, yet to be, also, their denouncer. He disappeared from England, no one knew why, closed up his house, wrote to his attorney to say he should probably not return for many years, and also that the lady who had passed as the viscountess was not so in actual fact." "It was a lie!" exclaimed Sir Charles. "Without doubt," the diplomatist continued suavely. "I only mention all these things to show you that we need not trouble our soon-to-be-beloved French neighbours about the Viscount Fordingbridge, especially as, after all, it was a higher power than they who slew him. Remember, he plotted to kill the King; he was Hanoverian or Jacobite as it suited him; in fact, Sir Charles, he was contemptible. Let us forget him." "Everyone is perfectly willing to do so, I assure your Excellency," the baronet replied, in quite as easy a manner as the other was capable of assuming; "he is quite done with on all sides. Only someone else has to be remembered who is supposed to be in the prison he was led out from--someone whose freedom many of us desire to procure." "An Englishman, of course?" "Yes. Not precisely so, though. A Scotchman, and----" "A Jacobite, perhaps?" the ambassador asked with a sweet smile. "There have been tendencies----" "Precisely. Good-morning. You can hardly----I protest, Sir Charles, you can hardly expect King George's representative to interest himself in that quarter. _Good_-morning." As regards the mayor and the _préfet_, he arrived no nearer. The former, a rabid hater of all things British, told him that, although he had no knowledge of what persons might be in the various prisons of Paris, he was quite sure that, if any Englishmen were incarcerated, they deserved to be. The _préfet_, more politely but with equal firmness, said he also was not aware of what English people might be detained in the prisons, but that, even if he possessed the knowledge, he should not consider it his duty to give any information on the subject.