Excitable and neurotic, like all consumptives, his imagination made of
those waiting moments a veritable hell.

She would never get down in safety--an old and hastily knotted rope, a
disregard of all ordinary precautions, and her body in the hands of men
who handled human lives more carelessly than most people would handle
stones. He bit his lip till the blood ran down to his chin.

Here he stood doing nothing, he who would have been tortured to save
her!

The window was shut and one of the men said: "She's down all right
after all. I thought by the look of her she would have fainted. She
has some pluck, Mademoiselle Fatalite!"

"Yes," answered Sobrenski. "Here's the coward and traitor."

Vardri wheeled round, looking straight into the cold eyes of his
leader. He had heard the last words. She was safe, that was all that
mattered, and for himself he was reckless.

"Traitor, am I? Yes, if the Cause is to include the ill-treatment of
women!"

"Women? Again women? Are our meetings to be used as love trysts.
There was a certain episode two years ago--Gaston de Barres and Felise
Rivaz--you remember it? Ah, I thought so! Then let it be a
warning--in the future you will be suspected and watched. There is no
need for me to dilate upon the punishment for treachery, all that you
knew when you joined us. You may consider yourself lucky to have
escaped so easily to-night. Through the few minutes' delay you have
caused, Poleski may have been arrested."

Vardri shrugged and sat down. Like Arithelli, he recognized the
futility of mere words upon certain occasions.

Moreover, now that the flame of his indignation had died down, he had
begun to feel wretchedly ill and spiritless with the reaction that
comes after any great excitement.

He sat shivering and coughing till the dawn, while the other men talked
in low voices or played cards. One or two slept fitfully in
uncomfortable attitudes on the floor.

No one grumbled at the discomfort or weariness of the vigil.

They who looked forward to ultimate prison and perhaps death itself
were not wont to quarrel with such minor inconveniences as the loss of
sleep.

Sobrenski had pulled the solitary candle in the room towards him and
sat writing rapidly and frowning to himself.

His fox-like face framed in its red hair and beard looked more
relentless and crafty than ever in the revealing light, and the boy
shivered anew, but not from physical cold.

He di