“I will tell you. You know, of course, that your wife is my heiress, and if she survives me, will be my successor. Now, if you were an Englishman you might get the reversion of your wife’s title.” “I do not want it. I would not ask for it, nor even accept it.” “That is your republican pride. Perhaps you are right. The old earldom has fallen to the distaff at length, and it will be likely to stay there for some generations to come; for Elfrida, who will be a countess in her own right, has only daughters, which is a pity. And yet I don’t know—I don’t know. If those fellows at Exeter Hall, and elsewhere, get their way, in another century from this there will not be an emperor or a king, to say nothing of a little earl, to be found above ground on the surface of this fourth planet of the solar system commonly called the earth, and their bones will be as great a curiosity as those of the behemoth or the megatherium. Shall we have another game?” And they played another, and yet another, game, in perfect silence, interrupted only by the monosyllable ejaculations of technicalities connected with their play. The earl arose the winner; he often—not always—did. And so he was in high spirits to welcome the return of the excursionists to dinner. Another sad day of separation was drawing near. Le was to leave them on the eleventh of October, giving himself twenty days in which to travel from Baden-Baden, in Germany, to Washington, in the United States. This was according to his uncle’s advice. “You might stay here until the fifteenth, or even until the seventeenth, and then reach Washington by the thirty-first; but it would, under the most favorable circumstances, be so close a shave as to be perilous to risk. An officer, nay, a man, may risk anything else in the world, Le, but he must not risk his honor. You must report for duty at headquarters punctually on the first of November, at any cost of pain to yourself or to others.” “I know it, uncle—I know it, and I will do my duty. Never doubt me.” “I never do, my boy. And listen, Le. If you are prompt, as you are sure to be, you may be able to obtain orders for the Mediterranean, and then, Le, we shall see you again on this side. We will go to any port where your ship may be.” “Thank you, uncle. I shall try for orders to the Mediterranean. And I think I shall get them. You see, I have been to the west coast of Africa, and I have been to the Pacific Coast, and I really think I may be favored now with orders to the Mediterranean. However, an officer must do his duty and obey, wherever he may be sent—if it were to Behring’s Straits!” concluded Le, with a dreary attempt at laughter. When the day of parting drew very near, and the depressed spirits of the lovers were evident to all who observed them, Mr. Force suddenly proposed that he and his Odalite should accompany Le to the steamer and see him off.