ce about our ears. Never mind, I won't say anything more
about it," continued Mr Verloc magnanimously. "You couldn't know."

"I couldn't," breathed out Mrs Verloc. It was as if a corpse had spoken.
Mr Verloc took up the thread of his discourse.

"I don't blame you. I'll make them sit up. Once under lock and key it
will be safe enough for me to talk--you understand. You must reckon on
me being two years away from you," he continued, in a tone of sincere
concern. "It will be easier for you than for me. You'll have something
to do, while I--Look here, Winnie, what you must do is to keep this
business going for two years. You know enough for that. You've a good
head on you. I'll send you word when it's time to go about trying to
sell. You'll have to be extra careful. The comrades will be keeping an
eye on you all the time. You'll have to be as artful as you know how,
and as close as the grave. No one must know what you are going to do. I
have no mind to get a knock on the head or a stab in the back directly I
am let out."

Thus spoke Mr Verloc, applying his mind with ingenuity and forethought to
the problems of the future. His voice was sombre, because he had a
correct sentiment of the situation. Everything which he did not wish to
pass had come to pass. The future had become precarious. His judgment,
perhaps, had been momentarily obscured by his dread of Mr Vladimir's
truculent folly. A man somewhat over forty may be excusably thrown into
considerable disorder by the prospect of losing his employment,
especially if the man is a secret agent of political police, dwelling
secure in the consciousness of his high value and in the esteem of high
personages. He was excusable.

Now the thing had ended in a crash. Mr Verloc was cool; but he was not
cheerful. A secret agent who throws his secrecy to the winds from desire
of vengeance, and flaunts his achievements before the public eye, becomes
the mark for desperate and bloodthirsty indignations. Without unduly
exaggerating the danger, Mr Verloc tried to bring it clearly before his
wife's mind. He repeated that he had no intention to let the
revolutionists do away with him.

He looked straight into his wife's eyes. The enlarged pupils of the
woman received his stare into their unfathomable depths.

"I am too fond of you for that," he said, with a little nervous laugh.

A faint flush coloured Mrs Verloc's ghastly and motionless face. Having
done wi