II.

A CLIMAX.

It was a momentous decision that George Brand had to arrive at; and yet
he scarcely seemed to be aware of it. The man had changed so much during
these past six months.

"Do you know, Evelyn," he was saying to his friend, on the very evening
on which his answer was to be given to Ferdinand Lind, "I am beginning
to look on that notion of my going to America with anything but dislike.
Rather the opposite, indeed. I should like to get rid of a lot of old
associations, and start in a new and wider field. With another life to
lead, don't you want another sort of world to live it in?"

Lord Evelyn regarded him. No one had observed with a closer interest the
gradual change that had come over this old friend of his. And he was
proud of it, too; for had it not been partly of his doing?

"One does not breathe free air here," Brand continued, rather
absently--as if his mental vision was fixed on the greater spaces beyond
the seas. "With a new sort of life beginning, wouldn't it be better to
start it under new conditions--feeling yourself unhampered--with nothing
around to disturb even the foolishness of your dreams and hopes? Then
you could work away at your best, leaving the result to time."

"I know perfectly what all that means," Lord Evelyn said. "You are
anxious to get away from Lind. You believe in your work, but you don't
like to be associated with him."

"Perhaps I know a little more than you, Evelyn," said Brand, gently, "of
Lind's relation to the society. He does not represent it to me at all.
He is only one of its servants, like ourselves. But don't let us talk
about him."

"You _must_ talk about him," Lord Evelyn said, as he pulled out his
watch. "It is now seven. At eight you go to the initiation of Molyneux,
and you have promised to give Lind his answer to-night. Well?"

Brand was playing idly with a pocket-pencil. After a minute or two, he
said,

"I promised Natalie to consider this thing without any reference to her
whatever--that I would decide just as if there was no possibility of her
becoming my wife. I promised that; but it is hard to do, Evelyn. I have
tried to imagine my never having seen her, and that I had been led into
this affair solely through you. Then I do think that if you had come to
me and said that my giving up every penny I possess would forward a good
work--would do indirect benefit to a large number of people, and so
forth--I do think I could have said, 'All right,