to spread. Had I fought half the army, it
would have been unavailing. Finally my mental sufferings overpowered my
physical strength. A raging fever seized me, and...' He ceased.

'And then?' asked Megret, with painful anxiety.

'In the paroxysms,' stammered Siquier, almost inaudibly, 'I am said to
have accused myself of Charles's murder, and to have thrown up my
windows and begged Sweden's pardon for the crime.'

'What consequence could they attach to such silly phantasies?' asked
Megret, turning deadly pale.

'The government,' continued Siquier, 'had me confined in a mad-house,
and when I recovered I received my dismission, with an injunction to
leave the kingdom.'

'Are you also, like myself, dismissed?' cried Megret, with a ferocious
laugh. 'They are right! The lemons have been squeezed, why should they
not sweep out the useless peels?'

'It is dreadful to have no means of escaping the gnawing worm in the
heart,' said Siquier, 'but, between ourselves, Megret, have we deserved
anything better?'

While saying this he seized Megret's hand and gave him a piercing
glance. The latter angrily tore himself from his grasp.

'You know our former agreement,' said he moodily, 'never to allude to
bye-gone occurrences, even in our most secret conversations.'

'You are right,' said Siquier, with a look and tone of horror. 'The
past is, for us, a black night, full of blood and flames! Let us wait
until it re-appear in eternal futurity!'

'Here is money,' said Megret, placing a heavy purse of gold in his
hand. 'Go and prosper.'

'It contains more than thirty pieces of silver,' said Siquier, weighing
the purse in a sort of mental abstraction. 'There is more than enough
to purchase a potter's field for a wanderer's grave!'

'The fever has weakened you, poor Siquier!' exclaimed Megret, with
forced laughter. 'You have grown learned in the scriptures, and will no
doubt become one of the professing brothers of La Trappe, in your old
age. Do hasten to get there.'

'Mock me not, seducer!' said Siquier, grating his teeth and grasping
the hilt of his sword. After a few moments he observed, 'you are right!
I believe in a hereafter,--I believe in future rewards and punishments,
and may I therefore live to repent and reform. You entertain a
different belief, and you have only to shoot yourself when your
conscience awakens from its death-sleep!'

'That may become advisable!' said Megret, in a low tone, and both
remained sitting