One chilly afternoon in February, while as yet the London season had not
quite begun, though the streets were busy enough, an open barouche was
being rapidly driven along Piccadilly in the direction of Coventry
Street; and its two occupants, despite the dull roar of vehicles around
them, seemed to be engaged in eager conversation. One of these two was a
tall, handsome, muscular-looking man of about thirty, with a sun-tanned
face, piercing gray eyes, and a reddish-brown beard cropped in the
foreign fashion; the other, half hidden among the voluminous furs of the
carriage, was a pale, humpbacked lad, with a fine, expressive,
intellectual face, and large, animated, almost woman-like eyes. The
former was George Brand, of Brand Beeches, Bucks, a bachelor unattached,
and a person of no particular occupation, except that he had tumbled
about the world a good deal, surveying mankind with more or less of
interest or indifference. His companion and friend, the bright-eyed,
beautiful-faced, humpbacked lad, was Ernest Francis D'Agincourt,
thirteenth Baron Evelyn.

The discussion was warm, though the elder of the two friends spoke
deprecatingly, at times even scornfully.

"I know what is behind all that," he said. "They are making a dupe of
you, Evelyn. A parcel of miserable Leicester Square conspirators,
plundering the working-man of all countries of his small savings, and
humbugging him with promises of twopenny-halfpenny revolutions! That is
not the sort of thing for you to mix in. It is not English, all that
dagger and dark-lantern business, even if it were real; but when it is
only theatrical--when they are only stage daggers--when the wretched
creatures who mouth about assassination and revolution are only