ed the soldier,
with a grim laugh.

"Is that all?"

"No, comrade, that is not all," was the answer in a graver voice.

"He proclaims that every Pole who submits now will be forgiven and set
at liberty; the past, he says, will be committed to an eternal oblivion
and a profound silence--those are his words."

"Ah!"

"Yes, and half the defenders of Dantzig are Poles--there are your
passports--pass on."

They drove through the dark streets where men like shadows hurried
silently about their business.

The Frauengasse seemed to be deserted when they reached it. It was
Mathilde who opened the door. She must have been at the darkened window,
behind the curtain. Lisa had gone home to her native village in Sammland
in obedience to the Governor's orders. Sebastian had not been home all
day. Charles had not returned, and there was no news of him.

Barlasch, wiping the snow from his face, watched Desiree, and made no
comment.

CHAPTER XXIV. MATHILDE CHOOSES.

But strong is fate, O Love,
Who makes, who mars, who ends.

Desiree was telling Mathilde the brief news of her futile journey, when
a knock at the front door made them turn from the stairs where they were
standing. It was Sebastian's knock. His hours had been less regular of
late. He came and went without explanation.

When he had freed his throat from his furs, and laid aside his gloves,
he glanced hastily at Desiree, who had kissed him without speaking.

"And your husband?" he asked curtly.

"It was not he whom we found at Thorn," she answered. There was
something in her father's voice--in his quick, sidelong glance at
her--that caught her attention. He had changed lately. From a man of
dreams he had been transformed into a man of action. It is customary
to designate a man of action as a hard man. Custom is the brick wall
against which feeble minds come to a standstill and hinder the progress
of the world. Sebastian had been softened by action, through which his
mental energy had found an outlet. But to-night he was his old self
again--hard, scornful, incomprehensible.

"I have heard nothing of him," said Desiree.

Sebastian was stamping the snow from his boots.

"But I have," he said, without looking up.

Desiree said nothing. She knew that the secret she had guarded so
carefully--the secret kept by herself and Louis--was hers no longer. In
the silence of the next moments she could hear Barlasch breathing on
his fingers, within the