is on the brink of a war that will tax her vast
resources to the utmost, and may end in her ruin; or that of the
visible and controlling head of the only organisation which can at
the supreme moment be the arbiter of peace or war, order or anarchy,
and which alone, if any earthly power can, will evolve order out of
chaos, and bring peace on earth at last."

As Natas ceased, Tremayne passed his hand slowly over his eyes and
brows, as though to clear away the mists which obscured his mental
vision. Then he rose from his chair, and paced the floor with quick,
uneven strides for several minutes. At length he replied, speaking as
one might who was just waking from some evil dream--

"You have made a conspirator and a murderer of me. How is it possible
that, knowing this, I can again become what I was before your
infernal influence was cast about me?"

"What you have done at my command is nothing to you, and leaves no
stain upon your honour, if you choose to put it so, for it was not
your will that was working within you, but mine. As for the killing
of Dornovitch, it was necessary, and you were the only instrument by
which it could have been accomplished before irretrievable harm had
been done.

"He alone of the outside world possessed the secret of the Terror. A
woman of the Outer Circle in Paris had allowed her love for him to
overcome her duty to the Brotherhood, and had betrayed what she
could, in order, as she vainly thought, to shield him from its
vengeance for the executive murders of the year before. He too had on
him the draft of the secret treaty, the possession of which has
enabled us to control the drift of European politics at the most
crucial time.

"Had he escaped, not only would hundreds of lives have been
sacrificed on suspicion to Russian official vengeance, but Russia and
France would now be masters of the British line of communication to
the East, for it would not have been possible for Mr. Balfour to have
been forewarned, and therefore forearmed, in time to double the
Mediterranean Squadron as he has done. Surely one Russian's life is
not too great a price to pay for all that."

"I do not care for the man's life, for he was an enemy, and even then
plotting the ruin of my own country in the dark. It is not the
killing, but the manner of it. England does not fight her battles
with the assassin's knife, and his blood is on my hands"--

"On your hands, perhaps, but not on your soul. It is on mine, a