climate was actually summer in its
prime--summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as
seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,--rather did it seem a dull
nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing
punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly
prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because
the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed
no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong
gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed
across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened
directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half
reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the
Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background
created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression
of the one from the other's observation. Outwardly, and at a first
causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them.
One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in
evening-dress,--both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the
pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both
seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing
for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither
seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant
traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their
ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden
echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at
some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately
through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops
trembled,--a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone
out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit
in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his
eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,--then lifting himself a
little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of
conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the
end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular
pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the
Saxon vocal cords.

"I have given you my full confidence," he said, "