y wrong God's providence. Yet, save that we are taught to believe
that all is ruled, we are as blind as they, and are still left wondering
why all that is true and generous and love's own fruit must turn so
often to woe and shame, exacting tears and blood. For myself I would
leave the thing untold, lest a word of it should seem to stain her whom
I serve; it is by her own command I write, that all may one day, in
time's fullness, be truly known, and those condemn who are without sin,
while they pity whose own hearts have fought the equal fight. So much
for her and him; for us less needs be said. It was not ours to weigh her
actions; we served her; him we had served. She was our queen; we bore
Heaven a grudge that he was not our king. The worst of what befell was
not of our own planning, no, nor of our hoping. It came a thunderbolt
from the hand of Rupert, flung carelessly between a curse and a
laugh; its coming entangled us more tightly in the net of circumstances.
Then there arose in us that strange and overpowering desire of which I
must tell later, filling us with a zeal to accomplish our purpose, and
to force Mr. Rassendyll himself into the way we chose. Led by this star,
we pressed on through the darkness, until at length the deeper darkness
fell that stayed our steps. We also stand for judgment, even as she and
he. So I will write; but I will write plainly and briefly, setting down
what I must, and no more, yet seeking to give truly the picture of that
time, and to preserve as long as may be the portrait of the man whose
like I have not known. Yet the fear is always upon me that, failing to
show him as he was, I may fail also in gaining an understanding of how
he wrought on us, one and all, till his cause became in all things
the right, and to seat him where he should be our highest duty and our
nearest wish. For he said little, and that straight to the purpose;
no high-flown words of his live in my memory. And he asked nothing for
himself. Yet his speech and his eyes went straight to men's hearts and
women's, so that they held their lives in an eager attendance on his
bidding. Do I rave? Then Sapt was a raver too, for Sapt was foremost in
the business.

At ten minutes to eight o'clock, young Bernenstein, very admirably
and smartly accoutred, took his stand outside the main entrance of
the castle. He wore a confident air that became almost a swagger as he
strolled to and fro past the motionless sentries. He had not