sappearance."

"Are you going to leave them where they are until these people arrive?"
she asked.

"I think so," he replied, after a moment's hesitation. "I don't seem to
have had time to consider even what to do. The opportunity came, and I
embraced it. There they are, and they won't dare to do any further harm
to Dunster now. Mrs. Fentolin was down in my room, and I thought it best
to bring her back first before I even parleyed with them again."

"You must be careful," she advised slowly. "The man Dunster has been
drugged, he has lost some of his will; he may have lost some of his
mental balance. Mr. Fentolin is clever. He will find a dozen ways to
wriggle out of any charge that can be brought against him. You know what
he has really done?"

"I can guess."

"He has kept back a document signed by the twelve men in America who
control the whole of Wall Street, who control practically the money
markets of the world. That document is a warning to Germany that they
will have no war against England. Owing to Mr. Fentolin, it has not been
delivered, and the Conference is sitting now. War may be declared at any
moment."

"But as a matter of common sense," Hamel asked, "why does Mr. Fentolin
desire war?"

"You do not understand Mr. Fentolin," she told him quietly. "He is not
like other men. There are some who live almost entirely for the sake
of making others happy, who find joy in seeing people content and
satisfied. Mr. Fentolin is the reverse of this. He has but one craving
in life: to see pain in others. To see a human being suffer is to him a
debauch of happiness. A war which laid this country waste would fill
him with a delight which you could never understand. There are no normal
human beings like this. It is a disease in the man, a disease which came
upon him after his accident."

"Yet you have all been his slaves," Hamel said curiously.

"We have all been his slaves," she admitted, "for different reasons.
Before his accident came, Mr. Fentolin was my master and the only man
in the world for me. After his accident, I think my feelings for him,
if anything, grew stronger. I became his slave. I sold my conscience, my
self-respect, everything in life worth having, to bring a smile to his
lips, to help him through a single moment of his misery. And just lately
the reaction has come. He has played with me just as he would sit and
pull the legs out of a spider to watch its agony. I have been one of his
favourite