cotton handkerchief. The calmness of despair was
settling down upon him. "He must know," he thought. "Better get it
over."

"To-night," he answered, "in an hour--perhaps before. They'll be
dropping in directly."

"Ah!" It was a long-drawn and significant monosyllable. The Count rose
to his feet, and commenced pacing the room. Already its meanness was
forgotten, its narrow walls had expanded. The day of his desire had
come. "What are your numbers now?" he asked.

The Professor drew a long breath, and kept his eyes fixed upon his
visitor. The thing was narrowing down.

"Four," he answered; "four besides myself."

The Count started and appeared perplexed.

"Four on the acting committee, you mean, I suppose?" he suggested. "Four
is the old number."

The Professor shook his head doggedly.

"Four altogether," he repeated.

The old man's eyes flashed, but the angry light died almost immediately
away. After all, there might be grave reasons, of which he was ignorant,
for restricting the number.

"Four desperate and brave men may be much," he mused, half aloud. "One
will do enough for my purpose."

There was a ghastly humor in that speech which was nearly too much for
Signor Bartlezzi. He was within an ace of collapsing, but he saved
himself by a quick glance at that worn old man. His visitor was living
in the light of five-and-twenty years ago. The awakening would come. It
was at hand.

"Signor Bartlezzi," the Count said, pausing suddenly in his restless
walk, "I have a confession to make."

"So had he," Signor Bartlezzi mused, though his would keep.

"Proceed," he begged, with a wave of his hand and a touch of his old
bombast, which had collapsed so suddenly. "Proceed, I am all attention."

The Count stood in the middle of the room, with his left hand thrust
into the bosom of his coat, and the right stretched out toward the
Professor. It was his old attitude of bygone days into which he had
unconsciously fallen, but his expression was no longer threatening, and
his voice, though indeed it quivered, was free from the passion and fire
of his youth. He was apologetic now, rather than denunciatory. It was a
great change.

"You will doubtless imagine, Signor Bartlezzi," he said, "from my
presence here, from my seeking you out immediately upon my release, that
the old fires burn still in my heart; that my enthusiasm for the cause
still survives the chill of five-and-twenty years. Alas! that I should
confess it,