obstinate things. The intense silence of the
morning hour depressed him and he wondered that the hotel should sleep
so soundly. His own door was both locked and bolted--he had a pistol in
his travelling-bag and would finger it with grim satisfaction at such
moments as these. Hitherto he had owed much to his very bravado, to a
habit of going in and out among the people freely, and deriding all
politics as a fool's employment. Latterly he had been wondering how far
this habit would protect him, had made shrewd guesses at the truth and
had come to the stage of question. Yesterday's work helped him to
confirm these vague suspicions. How came it that Lois Boriskoff was able
to warn this young Englishman, why had she come immediately to his hotel
and followed him to the old quarters of the city? This could only mean
that her friends had telegraphed the information from London, that every
step of the journey had been reported and that a promising plan of
action had been decided upon. Sergius dreaded this more than anything
that could have happened to him. They will ask what share I had in it,
he told himself; and he knew what the answer to that must be. Let them
but suspect a hundredth part of the truth and he might not have twenty
hours to live.

It had been a splendid life so far and a sufficient atonement for the
dreaded hours apart. There in his own room he gave battle to the
phantoms by recalling the faces of the pretty women he had cajoled and
defeated, the houses of pride he had destroyed, the triumphs he had
numbered and the recompense he had enjoyed. To be known to none save as
a careless idler, to pass as a figure of vengeance unrecognized across
the continents, to be the idol of the police in three cities, to have
men running to and fro at his command though they knew not by whose
order they were sent, here was wine of life so intoxicating that a man
might sell his very soul to possess it. Sergius did not believe that
there was any need for such a bargain as this--he had been consistently
successful hitherto in eluding even the paltriest consequences of his
employment--but the dark hours came none the less, and coming, they
whispered a word which even the bravest may shudder to hear.

He slept but fitfully, listening for any sounds from the city without
and anxious for the hotel to awaken to its daily routine. The cooler
argument of the passing hour declared it most unlikely that any plan
would be ventured until L