"How long will he live?" asked the latter.
"A year; perhaps only till to-morrow. Ah, had he but listened to
me several years ago, all this would not have come to pass. He
would see nothing; he persisted in dreams. With the death of
Josef he was convinced that his enemies had ceased to be. Had he
listened, I should have dismissed the cabinet, and found enough
young blood to answer my purposes; I should have surrounded him
with a mercenary army two thousand strong; by now he should have
stood strongly entrenched.
"They have robbed him, but you and I were permitted to do
nothing. Where is the prosperity of which we formerly boasted? I,
too, hear crumbling walls. Yet, the son of this Englishman,
whose strange freak is still unaccountable, will come at the
appointed time; I know the race. He will renew the loan for
another ten years. What a fancy! Lord Fitzgerald was an
eccentric man. Given a purpose, he pursued it to the end,
neither love nor friendship, nor fear swerved him. Do you know
that he made a vow that Duke Josef should never sit on this
throne, nor his descendants? What were five millions to him, if
in giving them he realized the end? The king would never explain
the true cause of this Englishman's folly, but I know that it
was based on revenge, the cause of which also is a mystery.
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