seated themselves in two chairs, one at
each end of the table.

'In the meantime,' continued Dare, 'to lend a little romance to stern
realities, I'll tell you a singular dream I had just before you returned
to England.' Power looked contemptuous, but Dare went on: 'I dreamt
that once upon a time there were two brothers, born of a Nonconformist
family, one of whom became a railway-contractor, and the other a
mechanical engineer.'

'A mechanical engineer--good,' said Power, beginning to attend.

'When the first went abroad in his profession, and became engaged on
continental railways, the second, a younger man, looking round for a
start, also betook himself to the continent. But though ingenious and
scientific, he had not the business capacity of the elder, whose
rebukes led to a sharp quarrel between them; and they parted in bitter
estrangement--never to meet again as it turned out, owing to the dogged
obstinacy and self-will of the younger man. He, after this, seemed to
lose his moral ballast altogether, and after some eccentric doings he
was reduced to a state of poverty, and took lodgings in a court in a
back street of a town we will call Geneva, considerably in doubt as to
what steps he should take to keep body and soul together.'

Abner Power was shooting a narrow ray of eyesight at Dare from the
corner of his nearly closed lids. 'Your dream is so interesting,' he
said, with a hard smile, 'that I could listen to it all day.'

'Excellent!' said Dare, and went on: 'Now it so happened that the house
opposite to the one taken by the mechanician was peculiar. It was a tall
narrow building, wholly unornamented, the walls covered with a layer of
white plaster cracked and soiled by time. I seem to see that house now!
Six stone steps led up to the door, with a rusty iron railing on each
side, and under these steps were others which went down to a cellar--in
my dream of course.'

'Of course--in your dream,' said Power, nodding comprehensively.

'Sitting lonely and apathetic without a light, at his own chamber-window
at night time, our mechanician frequently observed dark figures
descending these steps and ultimately discovered that the house was the
meeting-place of a fraternity of political philosophers, whose object
was the extermination of tyrants and despots, and the overthrow of
established religions. The discovery was startling enough, but our hero
was not easily startled. He kept their secret and lived on as be