alf-sentences came to our ears from groups that passed us. A very old
man with a nose that almost touched his thick lips, was saying to
another of the same type:

"Shot himself ... through the left temple ... _Mon Dieu_!"

De Mersch walked slowly down the long corridor away from us. There was
an extraordinary stiffness in his gait, as if he were trying to emulate
the goose step of his days in the Prussian Guard. My companion looked
after him as though she wished to gauge the extent of his despair.

"You would say '_Habet_,' wouldn't you?" she asked me.

I thought we had seen the last of him, but as in the twilight of the
dawn we waited for the lodge gates to open, a furious clatter of hoofs
came down the long street, and a carriage drew level with ours. A moment
after, de Mersch was knocking at our window.

"You will ... you will ..." he stuttered, "speak ... to Mr. Gurnard.
That is our only chance ... now." His voice came in mingled with the
cold air of the morning. I shivered. "You have so much power ... with
him and...."

"Oh, I ..." she answered.

"The thing must go through," he said again, "or else ..." He paused. The
great gates in front of us swung noiselessly open, one saw into the
court-yard. The light was growing stronger. She did not answer.

"I tell you," he asseverated insistently, "if the British Government
abandons my railway _all_ our plans ..."

"Oh, the Government won't _abandon_ it," she said, with a little
emphasis on the verb. He stepped back out of range of the wheels, and we
turned in and left him standing there.

* * * * *

In the great room which was usually given up to the political plotters
stood a table covered with eatables and lit by a pair of candles in tall
silver sticks. I was conscious of a raging hunger and of a fierce
excitement that made the thought of sleep part of a past of phantoms. I
began to eat unconsciously, pacing up and down the while. She was
standing beside the table in the glow of the transparent light. Pallid
blue lines showed in the long windows. It was very cold and hideously
late; away in those endless small hours when the pulse drags, when the
clock-beat drags, when time is effaced.

"You see?" she said suddenly.

"Oh, I see," I answered--"and ... and now?"

"Now we are almost done with each other," she answered.

I felt a sudden mental falling away. I had never looked at things in
that way, had never really looked thi