him last?"

The doorkeeper hesitated.

"Night of our last committee," he whispered finally.

"Oh, there's nothing in it," said the watchmaker reassuringly. He had
not a letter in his pocket.

The doorkeeper opened his mouth to speak, but seeing his wife
approaching, he shut it again and busied himself with his meal.

"What was the letter, Ned?"

"Oh, about the procession," he answered.

"Then you got it too late. Who was it from?"

"If you'd give us the tea," he broke out roughly, "and let the damned
letter alone, it 'ud be a deal better."

"La, you needn't fly out at a woman so," said Mrs. Evans. "It ain't the
way to treat his wife, is it, mister?"

"Mister" gallantly reproved his friend, but pleaded that they were both
weary, and weary legs made short tempers. Giving them the tea, she left
them to themselves; her work was not finished till three small children
were safely in bed.

The sensation of having one's neck for the first time within measurable
distance of a rope must needs be somewhat disquieting. The doorkeeper,
in spite of his secret society doings, was a timid man, with a vastly
respectful fear of the law. To talk about things, to vapour idly about
them over the cups, is very different from being actually, even though
remotely, mixed up in them. Ned Evans was a man of some education: he
read the papers, accounts of crimes and reports of trials; he had heard
of accessories after and before the fact. Was he not an accessory after
the fact? He fancied they did not hang such; but if they caught him, and
all that about Gaspard and the society came out, would they not call him
an accessory before the fact? The noose seemed really rather near, and
in his frightened fancy, as he lay sleepless beside his snoring wife,
the rope dangled over his head. The poor wretch was between the devil
and the deep sea--between stern law and cruel Rule 3. He dared not toss
about, his wife would ask him what ailed him; he lay as still as he
could, bitterly cursing his folly for mingling in such affairs, bitterly
cursing the Frenchman who led him on into the trap and left him fast
there. How could he save his neck? And he restlessly rent the band of
his coarse night-shirt, that pressed on his throat with a horrible
suggestion of what might be. Where was that Gaspard? Had he fled over
the sea? Ah, if he could be sure of that, and sure that the dreaded man
would not return! Or was he lurking in some secret hole, ready to