t reasonable,
you know."

"I blame you for being what you are," she answered breathlessly. "If
you were a person who understood, who felt the great stir of humanity
outside your own little circle, who could look across your seas and
realise that nationality is accidental and that the brotherhood of man
throughout the world is the only real fact worthy of consideration--ah!
if you could realise these things, I could talk, I could explain."

"You judge me in somewhat arbitrary fashion."

"I judge you from your life, your prejudices, even the views which you
have expressed."

"There are some of us," he reminded her, "to whom reticence is a
national gift. I like what you said just now. Why should you take it for
granted that I am a narrow squireen? Why shouldn't you believe that I,
too, may feel the horror of these days?"

"You feel it personally but not impersonally," she cried. "You feel it
intellectually but not with your heart. You cannot see that a kindred
soul lives in the Russian peasant and the German labourer, the British
toiler and the French artificer. They are all pouring out their blood
for the sake of their dream, a politician's dream. Freedom isn't won by
wars. It must be won, if ever, by moral sacrifice and not with blood."

"Then explain to me," he begged, "exactly what you are doing? What
your reason is for being in communication with the German Government?
Remember that the dispatch I intercepted came from no private person in
Germany. It came from those in authority."

"That again is not true," she replied. "I would ask for permission to
explain all these things to you, if it were not so hopeless."

"The case of your friends will probably be more hopeless still," he
reminded her, "after to-night."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"We shall see," she said solemnly. "The Russian revolution surprised
no one. Perhaps an English revolution would shake even your
self-confidence."

He made no reply. Her blood tingled, and she could have struck him for
the faint smile, almost of amusement, which for a moment parted his
lips. He was already on his feet, collecting their belongings.

"Can you help me," he asked, "with reference to the explanations which
it will be necessary to make to your aunt and to my own people? We left
this morning, if you remember, in order that you might visit the
Russian Embassy and announce our betrothal. You are, I believe, under an
engagement to return and stay with my mothe