Mr. S---- gazed in haughty astonishment, first at the box and then at the man. “This is irregular,” said he. “Why was I not made acquainted with the fact that a name was up for consideration, and why have you removed the box from its place and broken the connection which was made with so much difficulty?” As he said this he looked up through the glass of the conservatory to a high building I could see towering at the end of the garden. It was the building in which I had first seen that box, and I now understood how this connection had been made. Mr. S----‘s movement had been involuntary. Dropping his eyes, he finished by saying, with an almost imperceptible bow, “You may speak before this lady; she is the holder of a key.” “The connection was broken because suspicion was aroused; to your other question you will find an answer in the box. Shall I open it for you?” Mr. S------, with a stern frown, shook his head, and produced a key from his pocket. “Do you understand all this?” he suddenly asked Miss Calhoun. For reply, she pointed to the box. “Open!” her beseeching looks seemed to say. Mr. S---- turned the key and threw up the lid. “Look under the hand,” suggested the man. Mr. S---- leaned over the box, which had been laid on a small table, discovered a paper somewhere in its depth, and drew it out. It was no whiter than his face when he did so. “How many have subscribed to this?” he asked. “You will observe that there are five rings on the hand,” responded the man. Miss Calhoun started, opened her lips, but paused as she saw Mr. S---- unfold the paper. “The name of the latest traitor,” murmured the man, with a look of ferocity the like of which I had never seen on any human face before. It was not observed by either of the actors in the tragedy before me. Mr. S---- was gazing with a wild incredulity at the note he had unfolded; she was gazing at him. From the room beyond rose and swelled the sweet strains of the waltz. Suddenly a low, crackling sound was heard. It came from the paper which Mr. S---- had crumpled in his hand. “So the society has decreed my death,” he said, meeting the man’s steel-cold eye for the first time. “Now I know how the men whose doom preceded mine have felt in a presence that leaves no hope to mortal man. But _you_ shall not be _my_ executioner. I will meet my fate at less noxious hands than yours.” And, leaning forward, he whispered a few seemingly significant words into the messenger’s ear. The man, grievously disappointed, hung his head, and with a sidelong look, the venom of which made us all shudder, he hesitated to go. “To-night?” he said. “To-night,” Mr. S---- repeated, and pointed towards the door by which he had entered. Then, as the man still hesitated, he took him by the arm and resolutely led him through the conservatory, crying in his ear, “Go. I am still the chief.” The man bowed, and slipped slowly out into the night.