at Storch. He had never seen a
face more placid and untroubled. He felt that any man must have an
extraordinary sense of self-righteousness to yield so completely to
serenity in the face of deliberate crime. But Storch was of the stuff
of which all fanatics were made. Ends to him always justified means.
Of such were the Inquisitors of Spain, the Puritans of the
Reformation, the radicals of to-day. They had neither doubts nor fears
nor pity, and the helmets of their faith were a screen behind which
they hid their overweening egotism. They were ever seeking to entrap
humanity and humanity was forever in the end eluding them. And if
Hilmer were the eternal questioner made flesh, the gamekeeper beating
the furtive birds from the brush, this man Storch was the eternal
hunter, at once patient and relentless for his quarry.

And now the hunter slept with a smile on his lips. Of what could he be
dreaming? Was it possible to dream of smile-fashioning themes with
potential destruction within a stone's throw? In a corner of this
room, in a well-packed square case, reposed the force that, once set
in motion at the proper or miscalculated moment, could hurl both
Storch and Fred Starratt to eternity, and yet Storch slept
undisturbed. Well, was not the broader canvas of life full of just
such profound faith or profound indifference? Did not society itself
sleep with the repressed hatreds of the submerged waiting their
appointed season? And while new worlds flew flaming from the wheel of
creation, and old ones died in an eye's twinkling, did not the race
dream on contemptuous of the changes which lurked in the restless
heavens? Yes, the meanest coward in existence had his innate courage
and there was a note of bravery in life on any terms.

Fred stood before Storch's sleeping form a long time, and all manner
of impulses stirred him. There was even a moment when it came to him
that he might fall upon his gaoler while he slept and achieve a swift
freedom. And every ignoble murder of legend or history beckoned him
with the hands of red expediency. He ended by going to the door and
opening it cautiously as he had done the night before. But this time
the operation was more skillful and no warning click disturbed the
slumberer. He crept out into the night, down the cliff's edge, looking
back for the betraying shadow of a hidden spy. But there seemed to be
nothing to block his freedom. A virginal moon was languishing upon the
western rim o