A burst of music, laughter, voices, joy, rose in the drawing-room. Mr. S---- and Irene Calhoun stood looking at each other. “You must go home,” were the first words he uttered. Then, in a half-reproachful, half-pitiful tone, as if on the verge of tears, he added: “Was I so bad a chief that even you thought me a hindrance to the advancement of the society and the cause to which we are pledged?” It was the one thing he could say capable of rousing her. “Oh!” she cried, “it is all a mistake, all a cheat. Did you not get the letter I sent to my chief this morning, written in the usual style and directed in the usual way?” “No,” he answered. “Then there is worse treason than yours among the five. I wrote to say that my ring had been stolen; that I did not subscribe to the condemnation of the man under suspicion, and that, if it was made, it would be through fraud. That was before I knew that the suspected one and the man I addressed were one and the same. Now----” “Well, now?” “You have but to accuse the woman called Madame. The man you have just sent away would forgive you his disappointment if you gave him the supreme satisfaction of carrying doom to the still more formidable being who prophesies death to those for whom she has already prepared a violent end.” “Irene!” But her passion had found vent and she was not to be stilled. Telling him the whole story of the last twenty-four hours, she waited for the look of comfort she evidently expected. But it did not come. His first words showed why. “Madame is inexorable,” said he; “but Madame is but one of five. There are three others--true men, sound men, thinking men. If they deem me unworthy--and I have shown signs of faltering of late--Madame’s animosity or your loving weakness must not stand in the way of their decree. It shall never be said I sanctioned the doom of other men and shrank from my own. I would be unworthy of your love if I did, and your love is everything to me now.” She had not expected this; she had not at all reckoned upon the stern quality in this man, forgetting that without it he could never have held his pitiless position. “But it is not regular; it is not according to precedent. Five rings are required, and only four were fairly placed. As an honest man, you ought to hesitate at injustice, and injustice you will show if you allow them to triumph through their own deceit.” But even this failed to move him.