ned, of a distasteful nature.
Your own country alone could be the sufferer. Now what interest in the
world, then, is there left--what interest in the world can you possibly
represent--which can be the gainer by your present action?"

Mr. Fentolin's eyes grew suddenly a little brighter. There was a light
upon his face strange to witness.

"The power which is to be the gainer," he said quietly, "is the power
encompassed by these walls."

He touched his chest; his long, slim fingers were folded upon it.

"When I meet a man whom I like," he continued softly, "I take him into
my confidence. Picture me, if you will, as a kind of Puck. Haven't you
heard that with the decay of the body comes sometimes a malignant growth
in the brain; a Caliban-like desire for evil to fall upon the world;
a desire to escape from the loneliness of suffering, the isolation of
black misery?"

Mr. John P. Dunster let his cigar burn out. He looked steadfastly at
this strange little figure whose chair had imperceptibly moved a little
nearer to his.

"You know what the withholding of this message you carry may mean,"
Mr. Fentolin proceeded. "You come here, bearing to Europe the word of a
great people, a people whose voice is powerful enough even to still
the gathering furies. I have read your ciphered message. It is what I
feared. It is my will, mine--Miles Fentolin's--that that message be not
delivered."

"I wonder," Mr. Dunster muttered under his breath, "whether you are in
earnest."

"In your heart," Mr. Fentolin told him, "you know that I am. I can
see the truth in your face. Now, for the first time, you begin to
understand."

"To a certain extent," Mr. Dunster admitted. "Where I am still in
the dark, however, is why you should expect that I should become
your confederate. It is true that by holding me up and obstructing my
message, you may bring about the evil you seek, but unless that word is
cabled back to New York, and my senders believe that my message has been
delivered, there can be no certainty. What has been trusted to me as the
safest means of transmission, might, in an emergency, be committed to a
cable."

"Excellent reasoning," Fentolin agreed. "For the very reasons you name
that word will be given."

Mr. Dunster's face was momentarily troubled. There was something in the
still, cold emphasis of this man's voice which made him shiver.

"Do you think," Mr. Fentolin went on, "that I spend a great fortune
buying the secret