From scraps of conversation accidentally heard or deliberately eavesdropped, from the newspapers, from deduction and remembered fragments, I reconstructed the picture which made the background. Its borders reached a long way from Astor Place. For years the world had been waiting, half in dread, half in resignation, for war to break out between the world’s two Great Powers, the German Union and the Confederate States. Some expected the point of explosion would be the Confederacy’s ally, the British Empire; most anticipated at least part of the war would be fought in the United States. The scheme of the Grand Army, or of that part of it which included Tyss, was apparently a farfetched and fantastic attempt to circumvent the probable course of history. The counterfeiting was an aspect of this attempt which was nothing less than trying to force the war to start, not through the Confederacy’s ally, but through the German Union’s—the Spanish Empire. With enormous amounts of the spurious currency circulated by emissaries posing as Confederate agents, the Grand Army hoped to embroil the Confederacy with Spain and possibly preserve the neutrality of the United States. It was an ingenuous idea evolved, I see now, by men without knowledge of the actual mechanics of world politics. If I ever had any sentimental notions about the Army they vanished now. Tyss’s mechanism may not have been purposefully designed to palliate, but it made it easy to justify actions like Sprovis’. I had no such convenient way of numbing my conscience. But even as I brooded over the weakness and cowardice which made me an accomplice, I looked forward to my release. I had not seen Enfandin since his offer; in a week I would leave the bookstore for his sanctuary, and I resolved my first act should be to tell him everything. And then that dream was exploded just as it was about to be realized. I do not know who it was broke into the consulate or for what reason, and was surprised in the act, shooting and wounding Enfandin so seriously he was unable to speak for the weeks before he was finally returned to Haiti to recuperate or die. He could not have gotten in touch with me and I was not permitted to see him; the police guard was doubly zealous to keep him from all contact since he was both an accredited diplomat and a black man. I did not know who shot him. It was most unlikely to be anyone connected with the Grand Army, but I did not know. I could not know. He _might_ have been shot by Sprovis or George Pondible. Since the ultimate chain could have led back to me, it did lead back to me. If this were the Manichaeism of which Enfandin had spoken, I could not help it The loss of my chance to escape from the bookstore was the least of my despair. It seemed to me I was caught by the inexorable, choiceless circumstance in which Tyss so firmly believed and Enfandin denied. I could escape neither my guilt nor the surroundings conducive to further guilt. I could not change destiny.