"Here," he said, "I have met with more difficulty than I expected. The court of the duke is divided. Many of his advisers have been gained by Richelieu, and a number of the chief nobility are attached to an alliance with France. It was to strengthen the hands of our friend the Abbé Scaglia, and to commit irrevocably to our party many of the most influential of these nobles, that we held the secret meeting in the old Chateau of Groslie, where you found us so unexpectedly. Your coming was not, in truth, inopportune; for all was settled, and further discussion would have done harm rather than good." "I am glad your lordship has been so successful in great matters," said Edward, "while I have been so unsuccessful in smaller ones. Indeed, though I cannot trace my want of success to any fault of my own, yet I cannot help feeling that my failure to accomplish any thing that was intrusted to me must have shaken your lordship's confidence in me. Either I must have been stupid, or most unfortunate,--which is perhaps worse." "Nonsense, lad!" said Lord Montagu. "Many of the most successful men I have ever known failed in their first efforts: some failed for many years. There is in circumstance, my good youth, a dead weight which no human strength can overcome. We sent you to France because you were likely to pass where no man of riper years and known reputation could have made his way; but we were well aware that you had difficulties to contend with which were sure to try you hard and probably might frustrate all your efforts. But you have not wholly failed. You have been delayed, impeded; but you have made known the views of England where it was necessary they should be known, and you have brought me intelligence of the state of preparation of his Grace of Buckingham, which was most important at the present moment." "Indeed, my lord!" cried Edward, with a look of extreme surprise. "The cardinal minister opened all the letters and read them in my presence, and I heard no such intelligence." "Look there!" said Montagu, taking a letter from his pocket and holding it up before the young man's eyes. "You thought that there was nothing on that sheet but what is written in black ink; and so did Richelieu; but he did not and could not discover all that is told in those orange characters unless he had possessed the secret, only known to three persons, of the liquid which brings out the characters from the apparently blank paper. It is only a marvel, my boy, that you passed at all. We hardly expected it; but you have passed, and, though delayed upon your journey, have brought me this intelligence in time. This cardinal is very shrewd; but there are people as shrewd as he. This news will hurry the movements of Savoy, Lorraine, the empire; and yet he had this letter in his hand and suffered it to pass." "No thanks to me," said Edward; "for I knew not what was in it."