at,
whatever he is, he's a fool. What hope can there ever be of a free
peasantry in England if the peasants themselves are such snobs as to
want to be gentlemen? How can we make a democracy with no democrats?
As it is, you want to be a landlord and so you consent to be a
criminal. And in that, you know, you are rather like somebody else.
And, now I think of it, perhaps you are somebody else."

There was a silence broken by breathing from the corner and the
murmur of the rising storm, that came in through the small grating
above the man's head. Horne Fisher continued:

"Are you only a servant, perhaps, that rather sinister old servant
who was butler to Hawker and Verner? If so, you are certainly the
only link between the two periods. But if so, why do you degrade
yourself to serve this dirty foreigner, when you at least saw the
last of a genuine national gentry? People like you are generally at
least patriotic. Doesn't England mean anything to you, Mr. Usher?
All of which eloquence is possibly wasted, as perhaps you are not
Mr. Usher.

"More likely you are Verner himself; and it's no good wasting
eloquence to make you ashamed of yourself. Nor is it any good to
curse you for corrupting England; nor are you the right person to
curse. It is the English who deserve to be cursed, and are cursed,
because they allowed such vermin to crawl into the high places of
their heroes and their kings. I won't dwell on the idea that you're
Verner, or the throttling might begin, after all. Is there anyone
else you could be? Surely you're not some servant of the other rival
organization. I can't believe you're Gryce, the agent; and yet Gryce
had a spark of the fanatic in his eye, too; and men will do
extraordinary things in these paltry feuds of politics. Or if not
the servant, is it the . . . No, I can't believe it . . . not the
red blood of manhood and liberty . . . not the democratic ideal . . ."

He sprang up in excitement, and at the same moment a growl of
thunder came through the grating beyond. The storm had broken, and
with it a new light broke on his mind. There was something else that
might happen in a moment.

"Do you know what that means?" he cried. "It means that God himself
may hold a candle to show me your infernal face."

Then next moment came a crash of thunder; but before the thunder a
white light had filled the whole room for a single split second.

Fisher had seen two things in front of him. One was the
black-