"The thing is done,"--so he communed with himself,--"it was deliberately done, and well done. That hound is chained and muzzled, or will be so soon. For a time, at least, he is out of my path. But is he? What if he should escape the trap? What if those men to whom I have sent him are less an abomination in the eyes of the government than there is reason to think them? No doubt he will be compromised; no doubt he will get into difficulty; but if he should get out again! if, within a year from this he should come home to charge me with trapanning him! Pshaw! he could prove nothing. He would be thought malicious if he accused me. But he may suspect!" and this idea sufficed to fill his excited mind with fresh agitation. For three nights he had been without sleep; and now his irritable system was wrought almost to the point of fever. "Half measures are nothing! The nail must be driven home and clinched! I must make sure of him." And early in the morning he went to find Speyer. Speyer was not to be found. In his eagerness, he went again and again to seek him, though he knew that there was risk in doing so. At length he succeeded; and in spite of his resolute and long-practised self-control, his confederate saw at a glance, in his shining eye, flushed cheek, and the nervous compression of his lips, that he was under a great, though a painfully repressed excitement. "Well, monsieur, do you hear any thing from your friend?" "No, it is not time to hear." "You will have to wait a long while before the time comes." "Your letters were very well so far as they go; but the thing should be done thoroughly. What I wish you to do is this. Write to him a letter, implicating him in your revolutionary plot. He will be under suspicion. Every letter sent to him will be stopped and opened by the police." "If that is done, I will warrant you quit of him; at least for some years to come." "They will imprison him," said Vinal, nervously, "but that will be the whole,--his life will be in no danger." "His life!" returned Speyer, glancing sidelong at his visitor; "don't be troubled on that score. They won't kill him." "Then write the letter," said Vinal, laying a rouleau of gold on the table, "and write it in such a way that it shall spring the trap on him, and keep him caged till doomsday." The letter was written. Vinal read it, re-read it, sealed it, and with a quivering hand thrust it into the post office. CHAPTER XXXV. Thy hope is young, thy heart is strong, but yet a day may be, When thou shalt weep in dungeon deep, and none thy weeping see. _The Count of Saldana_.