“You seem resolute,” I told him, “to force me to do my worst. At this very instant, when I hold your life in my hands, when it is in my power to hand you over to justice by a word, and when I propose--partly for old friendship's sake and partly because I am ashamed that a fellow-countryman of mine should have been such a blackguard--to let you go, you are fool enough to tell me that my mercy has no effect upon you, and that you will do your best to be revenged upon me. Think that over, Brunow.” He turned his face away, and sat in silence for a minute; but all of a sudden I saw his shoulders begin to heave, his hands worked together, and he broke into convulsive tears. He sobbed so noisily that though the door was already closed, I darted towards it with an instinctive wish to shut out the sound from the ears of the people in the next room. “For God's sake, Fyffe,” he broke out, “let me go! I'll promise anything, do anything. I've--I've always been an honorable man till now, and I--I can't stand it any longer. If you've got any pity in you, let me go!” I was as much ashamed as he was, though, I hope, in another way, and I was eager to cut short the conference. For all that, I had a duty to discharge. “You shall go,” I said, “and I shall be glad to be rid of you. But first of all you shall make a clean breast of it.” He told the story in a furtive, broken way, as well he might; and how much more and how much less than the actual truth he told me I never knew with certainty, but it came to this. He had had heavy gambling losses, and had got into financial difficulties. The Baroness Bonnar had found this out, and had told him of a way by which he might recuperate himself. She had only hinted at first, and he had indignantly refused her proposal, but he had played about the bait, as I could readily fancy him doing, and had finally gorged it. He was to have received five hundred pounds next day on consideration of the arrival of intelligence from the people to whom he had betrayed Ruffiano, and he confessed that he had been promised other work of the same kind. “I swear to you, Fyffe,” he declared, “that I'd never have done it at all if I hadn't had the most solemn assurances that nothing would happen to the old man.” “Do you think,” I asked him, “that the solemn assurances of a spy are worth much in any case?” “They won't hurt him,” said Brunow; “I made sure of that beforehand. I give you my word of honor. I was careful about it, because I have rather a liking for him.” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if, having rather a liking for him, he had betrayed him to the Austrians, what he would have done if he had rather a dislike for him. But it could serve no purpose to argue at all in such a case, and it was hopeless to imagine that any exposure of himself would have made the man realize the perfidy of his own nature.