"Yes. Sir, once more. You don't know what they are, these secret societies, these hidden leagues moulded by Russian oppression and tyranny, these cliques, of which hate, vengeance, extermination, are the watchwords. Knowing so well what treachery is, they are jealous of the faith of their members. Death punishes treachery, and I had been treacherous, and death was my sentence. The Cause avenges itself; the appointed man accepted his appointed task. The man who threatened you that night--that old man, our chief--saved me." George Brudenell passed his hand over his forehead. The feeling which had assailed him when he was a prisoner in the mysterious house assailed him again--the involuntary doubt as to the reality of what he saw and heard. Still with her relentless eyes fixed upon him, she went on: "I had been treacherous--I will tell you how. There belonged to us a lad, a boy, almost a child--he was innocent, simple; he was our errand boy, cat's-paw--what you will; and he did what you have done, fell in love with me--because I am beautiful, perhaps. Bah! Many men have loved me--it is nothing. We suspected him, thought him false; with the Cause to suspect is to condemn. He was condemned, and to me was allotted the task of striking him. I meant to do it, I swore to do it. At the last moment my courage failed me--perhaps I pitied him--and I spared him. The sentence passed upon him was passed also upon me." "And he?" "He?" She met his look with a gloomy smile. "The Cause does not forgive unless for its own good, as it afterward forgave me. Our chief absolved me, for I was useful--so useful that my one act of treachery, my one moment of weakness, was condoned. For him--what was he? An untrustworthy tool merely. Another hand struck the blow which I had been appointed to strike. He died as I nearly died." She stopped and smiled in the same gloomy way. "No suspicion struck you when his body lay there yonder, and I stood beside you, looking at his dead face!" "That boy!" cried George Brudenell, horrified. "That boy," she assented. There was a pause, during which the Doctor rose and drew back from the tall, splendidly-poised figure, as firm and erect as he had ever seen it. He did not realize yet the blow that had fallen upon him, the blank in his life that would come later; but he felt as though he were struggling in a sea of horror, and was unable to disguise his shrinking from her, his avoidance of her, the woman to whom yesterday he had offered his love humbly, and whom he had besought to be his wife. He asked coldly, not looking at her: "What can I do?"