you will hold your tongue about the events of this
afternoon. Unless you speak of it, nobody need ever know that you have
furnished certain useful information, for in the Gevangenhuis the
names of witnesses are not mentioned to the accused. Otherwise you may
possibly come into trouble with your heretical friends and relatives.
Good afternoon. Brother, be so good as to open the door for this
gentleman."

A minute later Adrian found himself in the street, towards which he had
been helped by the kick of a heavy boot. His first impulse was to run,
and he ran for half a mile or more without stopping, till at length he
paused breathless in a deserted street, and, leaning against the wheel
of an unharnessed waggon, tried to think. Think! How could he think? His
mind was one mad whirl; rage, shame, disappointed passion, all boiled in
it like bones in a knacker's cauldron. He had been fooled, he had lost
his love, and, oh! infamy, he had betrayed his kindred to the hell of
the Inquisition. They would be tortured and burnt. Yes, even his mother
and Elsa might be burned, since those devils respected neither age nor
sex, and their blood would be upon his head. It was true that he had
signed under compulsion, but who would believe that, for had they not
taken down his talk word for word? For once Adrian saw himself as he
was; the cloaks of vanity and self-love were stripped from his soul, and
he knew what others would think when they came to learn the story. He
thought of suicide; there was water, here was steel, the deed would not
be difficult. No, he could not; it was too horrible. Moreover, how dared
he enter the other world so unprepared, so steeped in every sort of
evil? What, then, could he do to save his character and those whom his
folly had betrayed? He looked round him; there, not three hundred yards
away, rose the tall chimney of the factory. Perhaps there was yet time;
perhaps he could still warn Foy and Martin of the fate which awaited
them.

Acting on the impulse of the moment, Adrian started forward, running
like a hare. As he approached the building he saw that the workmen had
left, for the big doors were shut. He raced round to the small entrance;
it was open--he was through it, and figures were moving in the office.
God be praised! They were Foy and Martin. To them he sped, a white-faced
creature with gaping mouth and staring eyes, to look at more like a
ghost than a human being.

Martin and Foy saw him and shra