ce at last. "Yes,
Brande," I shouted aloud, "I will attend, and you shall be sorry for
having invited me."

"But I will not be sorry," said Natalie Brande, touching my arm.

"You here!" I exclaimed, in great surprise, for it was fully an hour
since I left the hall, and my movements had been at haphazard since
then.

"Yes, I have followed you for your own sake. Are you really going to
draw back now?"

"I must."

"Then I must go on alone."

"You will not go on alone. You will remain, and your friends shall go on
without you--go to prison without you, I mean."

"Poor boy," she said softly, to herself. "I wonder if I would have
thought as I think now if I had known him sooner? I suppose I should
have been as other women, and their fools' paradise would have been
mine--for a little while."

The absolute hopelessness in her voice pierced my heart. I pleaded
passionately with her to give up her brother and all the maniacs who
followed him. For the time I forgot utterly that the girl, by her own
confession, was already with them in sympathy as well as in deed.

She said to me: "I cannot hold back now. And you? You know you are
powerless to interfere. If you will not come with me, I must go alone.
But you may remain. I have prevailed on Herbert and Grey to permit
that."

"Never," I answered. "Where you go, I go."

"It is not really necessary. In the end it will make no difference. And
remember, you still think me guilty."

"Even so, I am going with you--guilty."

Now this seemed to me a very ordinary speech, for who would have held
back, thinking her innocent? But Natalie stopped suddenly, and, looking
me in the face, said, almost with a sob:

"Arthur, I sometimes wish I had known you sooner. I might have been
different." She was silent for a moment. Then she said piteously to me:
"You will not fail me to-morrow?"

"No, I will not fail you to-morrow," I answered.

She pressed my hand gratefully, and left me without any explanation as
to her movements in the meantime.

I hurried to my hotel to set my affairs in order before joining Brande's
expedition. The time was short for this. Fortunately there was not much
to do. By midnight I had my arrangements nearly complete. At the time,
the greater part of my money was lying at call in a London bank. This I
determined to draw in gold the next day. I also had at my banker's some
scrip, and I knew I could raise money on that. My personal effects and
the mementos o