To his boundless astonishment Brereton was really in bed, with a light beside him. Asleep he probably was not, for he rose at once to a sitting posture and, with wild and dishevelled hair, confronted the intruder with a mingling of wrath and discomfiture in his looks. His sword and an undress cap, blue with a silver band, lay beside the candle on the table, and Vaughan saw that though in his shirt-sleeves he was not otherwise undressed. “Mr. Vaughan!” he cried. “What, if you please, does this mean?” “That is what I am here to ask you!” Vaughan answered, his face flushed with indignation. He was too angry to pick his words. “Are you, can you be aware, sir, what is done while you sleep?” “Sleep?” Brereton rejoined, with a sombre gleam in his eyes. “Sleep, man? God knows it is the last thing I do!” He clapped his hand to his brow and for a moment remained silent, holding it there. Then, “Sleep has been a stranger to me these three nights!” he said. “Then what do you do here?” Vaughan answered, in astonishment. And looked round the room as if he might find his answer there. “Ah!” Brereton rejoined, with a look half suspicious, half cunning. “That is another matter. But never mind! Never mind! I know what I am doing.” “Know——” “Yes, well!” the soldier replied, bringing his feet to the floor, but continuing to keep his seat on the bed. “Very well, sir, I assure you.” Vaughan looked aghast at him. “But, Colonel Brereton,” he rejoined, “do you consider that you are the only person in this city able to act? That without you nothing can be done and nothing can be ventured?” “That,” Brereton returned, with the same shrewd look, “is just what I do consider! Without me they cannot act! They cannot venture. And I—go to bed!” He chuckled at it, as at a jest; and Vaughan, checked by the oddity of his manner, and with a growing suspicion in his mind, knew not what to think. For answer, at last, “I fear that you will not be able to go to bed, Colonel Brereton,” he said gravely, “when the moment comes to face the consequences.” “The consequences?” “You cannot think that a city such as this can be destroyed, and no one be called to account?” “But the civil power——” “Is impotent!” Vaughan answered, with returning indignation, “in the face of the disorder now prevailing! I warn you! A little more delay, a little more license, let the people’s passions be fanned by farther impunity, and nothing, nothing, I warn you, Colonel Brereton,” he continued with emphasis, “can save the major part of the city from destruction!” Brereton rose to his feet, a certain wildness in his aspect. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean it! Do you really mean it, Vaughan? But—but what can I do?” He sank down on the bed again, and stared at his companion. “Eh? What can I do? Nothing!” “Everything!”