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ST. IVES.

THE ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH PRISONER IN ENGLAND.

By Robert Louis Stevenson,

Author of "Treasure Island," "Kidnapped," etc.

BEGUN IN THE MARCH NUMBER—SUMMARY OF EARLIER CHAPTERS.

Viscount Anne de St. Ives, under the name of Champdivers, while held a prisoner of war in Edinburgh Castle, attracts the sympathy of Flora Gilchrist, who, out of curiosity, visits the prisoners, attended by her brother Ronald. On her account St. Ives kills a comrade, Goguelat, in a duel, fought secretly in the night, with the divided blades of a pair of scissors. An officer of the prison, Major Chevenix, discovers the secret of the duel and of St. Ives's interest in the young lady: a fact that promises importance later. Having escaped from prison, St. Ives plans to proceed to a rich uncle in England, Count de Kéroual, who, as he has learned from a solicitor, Daniel Romaine, is near dying, and is likely to make him his heir in place of a cousin, Alain de St. Ives. First, however, he steals to the home of Flora Gilchrist. Discovered there by the aunt with whom Flora lives, he is regarded with suspicion; but still is helped to escape across the border, under the guidance of two drovers. After many adventures, he reaches Amersham Place, his uncle Count de Kéroual's country seat, and finds the count extremely low, with a doctor in close attendance. To his surprise, the whole household shows to have been in active expectation of his coming: a room has been made ready for him, new clothes are laid out for his wear, and a young man named Rowley is at hand for his exclusive service. He is hurried off to dress for dinner, and then dines in company with the doctor.


CHAPTER XVII.

THE DESPATCH-BOX.

THE doctor had scarce finished his meal before he hastened with an apology to attend upon his patient; and almost immediately after, I was myself summoned, and ushered up the great staircase and along interminable corridors to the bedside of my great-uncle the count. You are to think that up to the present moment I had not set eyes on this formidable personage, only on the evidences of his wealth and kindness. You are to think besides that I had heard him miscalled and abused from my earliest childhood up. The first of the émigrés could never expect a good word in the society in which my father moved. Even yet the reports I received were of a doubtful nature; even Romaine had drawn of him no very amiable portrait; and as I was ushered into the room, it was a critical eye that I cast on my great-uncle. He lay propped on pillows in a little cot no greater than a camp-bed, not visibly breathing. He was about eighty years of age, and looked it; not that his face was much lined, but all the blood and color seemed to have faded from his body, and even his eyes,

Copyright, 1897, by the S. S. McClure Co., New York.