e wore
magnificent furs, and as she threw aside her boa she disclosed a mass of
jewellery around her neck and upon her bosom, almost barbaric in its
profusion and setting.

"What an extraordinary couple!" Lady Maxwell whispered.

Bernadine smiled.

"The man looks as though he had stepped out of the Old Testament," he
murmured.

Lady Maxwell's interest was purely feminine, and was riveted now upon
the jewellery worn by the woman. Bernadine, under the mask of his
habitual indifference, which he had easily reassumed, seemed to be
looking away out of the restaurant into the great square of a
half-savage city, looking at that marvellous crowd, numbered by their
thousands, even by their hundreds of thousands, of men and women whose
arms flashed out toward the snow-hung heavens, whose lips were parted in
one chorus of rapturous acclamation; looking beyond them to the tall,
emaciated form of the bare-headed priest in his long robes, his
wind-tossed hair and wild eyes, standing alone before that multitude in
danger of death, or worse, at any moment--their idol, their hero. And
again, as the memories came flooding into his brain, the scene passed
away, and he saw the bare room, with its whitewashed walls and
blocked-up windows; he felt the darkness, lit only by those flickering
candles. He saw the white, passion-wrung faces of the men who clustered
together around the rude table, waiting; he heard their murmurs; he saw
the fear born in their eyes. It was the night when their leader did not
come!

Bernadine poured out another glass of wine and drank it slowly. The
mists were clearing away now. He was in London, at the Savoy Restaurant,
and within a few yards of him sat the man with whose name all Europe
once had rung--the man hailed by some as martyr, and loathed by others
as the most fiendish Judas who ever drew breath. Bernadine was not
concerned with the moral side of this strange encounter. How best to use
his knowledge of this man's identity was the question which beat upon
his brain. What use could be made of him, what profit for his country
and himself? And then a fear--a sudden, startling fear. Little profit,
perhaps, to be made, but the danger--the danger of this man alive with
such secrets locked in his bosom! The thought itself was terrifying, and
even as he realised it a significant thing happened--he caught the eye
of the Baron de Grost, lunching alone at a small table just inside the
restaurant.

"You are no