orant as to whether it might not mark the news of some fresh
catastrophe, the tidings of some decision that would precipitate
his world about him.

As to the progress of events he knew nothing at all.

Since that horrible instant when the door had closed in his face
and the Cardinal had gone again as mysteriously as he had come--now
three days ago--he had heard no hint that could tell him how things
developed. He had not even dared to ask the taciturn servant in
uniform who brought him food as to the fate of the old man.
For he knew with a certainty as clear as if he had seen the dreadful
thing done, that his friend and master was dead--dead, as the
Revolutionary Committee had said he would be, if he came with any
message other than that of submission. As to the manner of his death
he dared not even conjecture. It would be swift, at least. . . .

Ten thousand thoughts, recurring and recurring, like pictures
thrown on a wall, ran past his attention as the hours went by. He
saw the gathering of armaments--the horizon tinged by the
gathering war-vessels of the air--the advance, the sudden storm
of battle, the gigantic destruction from these vast engines of
power of which he had learned nothing but their ghastly
potentialities. Or he saw the advance of this desperate garrison,
dispersing this way and that for their war upon the world--silent
vessels, moving in the clouds, to Rome, to London, to Paris and
Versailles, each capable of obliterating a city. Or he saw,
again, the submission of the world to the caprice of these
desperate children who feared nothing--not even death itself--who
crouched like an ape in a powder-magazine, lighted match in hand,
careless as to whether or no themselves died so long as the world
died with them.

He formulated nothing; concluded nothing; he rejected every
conjecture which temporarily constructed itself in his almost
passive mind. He did not even yet fully understand that the
question he had asked of himself months before--the question that
had tortured him so keenly--as to whether these Christians who
ruled had not forgotten how to suffer--had been answered with
dreadful distinctness. He just perceived that the young Roman
prince had been gallant; that the old man had been more gallant
still, since those to whom he came had already proved that they
would keep their word. And now the third day was drawing to an
end, and by midnight suspense would be over.

The fog still hung over t