"I have a great many things to arrange to-night," he answered, simply. "Perhaps I may not be able to get to bed at all." Lord Evelyn hesitated. "When can I see you to-morrow?" he said at length. "You know I am going to Lind the first thing in the morning." Brand stopped abruptly. "I must absolutely forbid your doing anything of the kind," said he, firmly. "This is a matter of the greatest secrecy; there is to be no talking about it; I have given you some hint, and the same I shall give to Natalie, and there an end." He added, "Your interference would be quite useless, Evelyn. The matter is not in Lind's hands." He bade his friend good-night. "Thank you for letting me bore you so long. You see, I expected talking over the thing would drive off that first shock of nervousness. Now I am going to play the part of Karl Sand with indifference. When you hear of me, you will think I must have been brought up by the Tugendbund or the Carbonari, or some of those societies." This cheerfulness did not quite deceive Lord Evelyn. He bade his friend good-night with some sadness; his mind was not at ease about the share he attributed to himself in this calamity. When Brand reached his chambers in Buckingham Street there was a small parcel awaiting him. He opened it, and found a box with, inside, a tiny nosegay of sweet-smelling flowers. These were not half as splendid as those he had got the previous afternoon for the rooms in Hans Place, but there was something accompanying them that gave them sufficient value. It was a strip of paper, and on it was written--"From Natalie and from Natalushka, with more than thanks." "I will carry them with me," he thought to himself, "until the day of my death. Perhaps they may not have quite withered by then." CHAPTER XLII. A COMMUNICATION. Now, he said to himself, he would think no more; he would act. The long talk with Lord Evelyn had enabled him to pull himself together; there would be no repetition of that half-hysterical collapse. More than one of his officer-friends had confessed to him that they had spent the night before their first battle in abject terror, but that that had all gone off as soon as they were called into action. And as for himself, he had many things to arrange before starting on this hunting-expedition, which was to serve as a cloak for another enterprise. He would have to write at once, for example, to his sister--an invalid widow, who passed her life alternately on the Riviera and in Switzerland--informing her of his intended travels. He would have to see that a sufficient sum was left for Natalie's mother, and put into discreet hands. The money for the man Kirski would have to be properly tied up, lest it should prove a temptation. Why, those two pieces of Italian embroidery lying there, he had bought them months ago, intending to present them to Natalie, but from time to time the opportunity had been missed. And so forth, and so forth.