Stricken to the very dust of abasement by this direct “cut” so publicly administered, the crestfallen editor and proprietor of many journals stood aghast for a moment,--then as various unbidden thoughts began to chase one another through his bewildered head, he was seized with a violent trembling. He remembered every foolish, imprudent and disloyal remark he had made to the stranger named Pasquin Leroy who had called upon him bearing the Premier’s signet,--and reflecting that this very Pasquin Leroy was now, by some odd chance, a contributor of political leaders and other articles to the rival daily newspaper which had published the King’s official refusal of a grant of land to the Jesuits, he writhed inwardly with impotent fury. For might not this unknown man, Leroy,--if he were,--as he possibly was,--a friend of the King’s--go to the full length of declaring all he knew and all he had learned from Jost’s own lips, concerning certain ‘financial secrets,’ which if fully disclosed, would utterly dismember the Government and put the nation itself in peril? Might he not already even have informed the King? With his little, swine-like eyes retreating under the crinkling fat of his lowering brows, Jost, hot and cold by turns, wandered confusedly out of the ‘exclusive’ set of persons connected with the ‘Grand National Theatre’ scheme, who were now gathered round the suspended foundation-stone to which the King was approaching. He pretended not to see the curious eyes that stared at him, or the sneering mouths that smiled at the open slight he had received. Pushing his way through the crowd, he jostled against the thin black-garmented figure of a priest,--no other than Monsignor Del Fortis, who, with an affable word of recognition, drew aside to allow him passage. Affecting his usual ‘company-manner’ of tolerant good-nature, he forced himself to speak to this ‘holy’ man, who, at any rate, had paid him good money in round sums for so-called ‘articles’ or rather puff-advertisements in his paper concerning Church matters. “Good-day, Monsignor!” he said--“You are not often seen at a Royal pageant! How comes it that you, of all persons in the world have brought yourself to witness the laying of the foundation-stone of a Theatre? Does not your calling forbid any patronage of the mimic Art?” The priest’s thin lips parted, showing a glimmer of wolfish teeth behind the pale stretched line of flesh. “Not by any means!” he replied suavely--“In the present levelling and amalgamation of social interests, the Church and Stage are drawing very closely together.” “True!” said Jost, with a grin--“One might very well be taken for the other!” Del Fortis looked at him meditatively. “This,” he said, waving his lean hand towards the centre of the brilliant crowd where now the King stood, “is a kind of drama in its way. And you, Mr. Jost, have just played one little scene in it!” Jost reddened, and bit his lip.