d.

"You will observe that there are five rings on the hand," responded the
man.

Miss Calhoun started, opened her lips, but paused as she saw Mr. S----
unfold the paper.

"The name of the latest traitor," murmured the man, with a look of
ferocity the like of which I had never seen on any human face before.

It was not observed by either of the actors in the tragedy before
me. Mr. S---- was gazing with a wild incredulity at the note he had
unfolded; she was gazing at him. From the room beyond rose and swelled
the sweet strains of the waltz.

Suddenly a low, crackling sound was heard.

It came from the paper which Mr. S---- had crumpled in his hand.

"So the society has decreed my death," he said, meeting the man's
steel-cold eye for the first time. "Now I know how the men whose doom
preceded mine have felt in a presence that leaves no hope to mortal man.
But _you_ shall not be _my_ executioner. I will meet my fate at less
noxious hands than yours." And, leaning forward, he whispered a
few seemingly significant words into the messenger's ear. The man,
grievously disappointed, hung his head, and with a sidelong look, the
venom of which made us all shudder, he hesitated to go.

"To-night?" he said.

"To-night," Mr. S---- repeated, and pointed towards the door by which
he had entered. Then, as the man still hesitated, he took him by the arm
and resolutely led him through the conservatory, crying in his ear, "Go.
I am still the chief."

The man bowed, and slipped slowly out into the night.

A burst of music, laughter, voices, joy, rose in the drawing-room. Mr.
S---- and Irene Calhoun stood looking at each other.

"You must go home," were the first words he uttered. Then, in a
half-reproachful, half-pitiful tone, as if on the verge of tears, he
added: "Was I so bad a chief that even you thought me a hindrance to the
advancement of the society and the cause to which we are pledged?"

It was the one thing he could say capable of rousing her.

"Oh!" she cried, "it is all a mistake, all a cheat. Did you not get the
letter I sent to my chief this morning, written in the usual style and
directed in the usual way?"

"No," he answered.

"Then there is worse treason than yours among the five. I wrote to
say that my ring had been stolen; that I did not subscribe to the
condemnation of the man under suspicion, and that, if it was made, it
would be through fraud. That was before I knew that the suspected one
and the