ence, but without interest; only for the time being, these
necessities of the hour beguiled him from thinking of the hideous,
inevitable thing that lay ahead in his life.

When news did come, it was sudden and terrible. One night he and Edwards
were alone in the rooms in Lisle Street, when a letter, sent through a
roundabout channel, was put into his hands. He opened it carelessly,
glanced at the beginning of it, then he uttered an exclamation; then, as
he read on, Edwards noticed that his companion's face was ghastly pale,
even to his lips.

"Gracious heavens!--Edwards, read it!" he said, quite breathlessly. He
dropped the letter on the table. There was no wild joy at his own
deliverance in this man's face, there was terror rather; it was not of
himself at all he was thinking, but of the death-agony of Natalie Lind
when she should hear of her father's doom.

"Why, this is very good news, Brand," Edwards cried, wondering. "You are
released from that affair--"

But then he read farther, and he, too, became agitated.

"What--what does it mean? Lind, Beratinsky, Reitzei accused of
conspiracy--misusing the powers intrusted to them as officers of the
Society--Reitzei acquitted on giving evidence--Lind and Beratinsky
condemned!"

Edwards looked at his companion, aghast, and said,

"You know what the penalty is, Brand?"

The other nodded. Edwards returned to the letter, reading aloud, in
detached scraps, his voice giving evidence of his astonishment and
dismay.

"Beratinsky, allowed the option of undertaking the duty from which you
are released, accepts--it is his only chance, I suppose--poor devil!
what chance is it, after all?" He put the letter back on the table.
"What is all this that has happened, Brand?"

Brand did not answer. He had risen to his feet; he stood like one bound
with chains; there was suffering and an infinite pity in the haggard
face.

"Why is not Natalie here?" he said; and it was strange that two men so
different from each other as Brand and Calabressa should in such a
crisis have had the same instinctive thought. The lives and fates of men
were nothing; it was the heart of a girl that concerned them. "They will
tell her--some of them over there--they will tell her suddenly that her
father is condemned to die! Why is she--among--among strangers?"

He pulled out his watch hastily, but long ago the night-mail had left
for Dover. At this moment the bell rung below, and he started; it was
unu