ermitted to annoy angels--to trouble them in the street. Do you
understand that that means punishment--one must be punished--if one
returns to the house of that young lady? Do you understand?"

The man regarded him with the small, deep-set eyes again sunk into
apathy.

"Ihr Diener, Herr," said he, submissively.

"You understand you are not to go back to the house of the young lady?"

"Ihr Diener, Herr."

There was nothing to be got out of him, or into him; so Brand waited
until he should get help of Heinrich Reitzei, Lind's _locum tenens_.

Reitzei was in the chambers--at Lind's table, in fact. He was a man of
about twenty-eight or thirty, slim and dark, with a perfectly pallid
face, a small black mustache carefully waxed, and an affectedly
courteous smile. He wore a _pince-nez_; was fond of slang, to show his
familiarity with English; and aimed at an English manner, too. He seemed
bored. He regarded this man whom Brand introduced to him without
surprise, with indifference.

"Hear what this fellow has to say," Brand said, "will you? and give him
distinctly to understand that if he tries again to see Miss Lind, I will
break his head for him. What idiot could have given him Lind's private
address?"

The man was standing near the door, stolid apparently, but with his
small eyes keenly watching. Reitzei said a word or two to him. Instantly
he went--he almost sprung--forward; and this movement was so unexpected
that the equanimity of the pallid young man received a visible shock,
and he hastily drew out a drawer a few inches. Brand caught sight of the
handle of a revolver.

But the man was only eager to tell his story, and presently Reitzei had
resumed his air of indifference. As he proceeded to translate for
Brand's benefit, in interjectional phrases, what this man with the
trembling hands and the burning eyes was saying, it was strange to mark
the contrast between the two men.

"His name Kirski," the younger man was saying, as he eyed, with a cool
and critical air, the wild look in the other's face. "A carver in wood,
but cannot work now, for his hands tremble, through hunger and
fatigue--through drink, I should say--native of a small village in
Kiev--had his share of the Communal land--but got permission from the
Commune to spend part of the year in Kiev itself--sent back all his
taxes duly, and money too, because--oh, this is it?--daughter of village
Elder--young, beautiful, of course--left an orphan, with th