se. Tell your father to look after things indoors and to
let nobody out.'

Then the hall-door was flung open, and both Ericson and Helena saw by
the scared faces of the two men who stood in the hall that something had
happened since the Dictator and she had gone out on their short wild
night-ride.

'What has gone wrong, Frederick?' Helena asked eagerly.

'Oh please, Miss, Mr. Rivers--Miss----'

'Yes, Frederick, Mr. Rivers----'

'Please, Miss, poor Mr. Rivers--he is killed!'

Then for the first time the terrible reality of the situation was
brought straight home to Helena--to her mind and to her heart. Up to
this moment it was melodramatic, startling, shocking, bewildering; but
there was no cold, grim, cruel, practical detail about it. It was like
the fierce blinding flash of the lightning and the crash of the thunder,
followed, when senses coldly recover, by the knowledge of the abiding
blindness. It was like the raw conscript's first sight of the comrade
shot down by his side. Helena was a brave girl, but she would have
fallen in a faint were it not that a burst of stormy tears came to her
relief.

'Poor Soame Rivers!' she sobbed. 'I wish I could have liked him more
than I did.' And she sobbed again, and Ericson understood her and
sympathised with her.

'Poor Soame Rivers!' he said after her. 'I wish I too had liked him, and
known him better!'

'What was he killed for?' Helena passionately asked.

'He was killed for _me_!' the Dictator answered calmly. 'All this
trouble and tragedy have been brought on your house by _me_.'

'Let it come!' the girl sobbed, in a wild fresh outburst of new emotion.

'Come,' Ericson said gently and sympathetically, 'let us go in and learn
what has happened. Let us have the full story of the whole tragedy.
Nothing is now left but to punish the guilty.'

'Who _are_ they?' Helena asked in passion.

'We shall find them,' he answered. 'Come with me, Helena. You are a
brave girl, and you are not going to give way now. I may have to ask you
to lend a helping hand yet.'

The Dictator said these words with a purpose. He knew that the best way
to get a courageous woman to brace herself together for new effort and
new endurance was to make her believe that her personal help would still
be wanted.

'Oh, I--I am ready for anything,' she said fervently. 'Only tell me what
I am to do, and you will see that I can do it.'

'I trust you,' he answered quietly. Meanwhile his keen eyes we