s each other. "Come to my little bit of
breakfast before I go my ways among the pupils that I teach."

"Good-night, Pesca."

"Good-night, my friend."

VI

MY first conviction as soon as I found myself outside the house, was
that no alternative was left me but to act at once on the information I
had received--to make sure of the Count that night, or to risk the
loss, if I only delayed till the morning, of Laura's last chance. I
looked at my watch--it was ten o'clock.

Not the shadow of a doubt crossed my mind of the purpose for which the
Count had left the theatre. His escape from us, that evening, was
beyond all question the preliminary only to his escape from London.
The mark of the Brotherhood was on his arm--I felt as certain of it as
if he had shown me the brand; and the betrayal of the Brotherhood was
on his conscience--I had seen it in his recognition of Pesca.

It was easy to understand why that recognition had not been mutual. A
man of the Count's character would never risk the terrible consequences
of turning spy without looking to his personal security quite as
carefully as he looked to his golden reward. The shaven face, which I
had pointed out at the Opera, might have been covered by a beard in
Pesca's time--his dark brown hair might be a wig--his name was
evidently a false one. The accident of time might have helped him as
well--his immense corpulence might have come with his later years.
There was every reason why Pesca should not have known him again--every
reason also why he should have known Pesca, whose singular personal
appearance made a marked man of him, go where he might.

I have said that I felt certain of the purpose in the Count's mind when
he escaped us at the theatre. How could I doubt it, when I saw, with
my own eyes, that he believed himself, in spite of the change in his
appearance, to have been recognised by Pesca, and to be therefore in
danger of his life? If I could get speech of him that night, if I could
show him that I, too knew of the mortal peril in which he stood, what
result would follow? Plainly this. One of us must be master of the
situation--one of us must inevitably be at the mercy of the other.

I owed it to myself to consider the chances against me before I
confronted them. I owed it to my wife to do all that lay in my power
to lessen the risk.

The chances against me wanted no reckoning up--they were all merged in
one. If the Count discovered, by my