to get a pardon. Maybe--maybe they won't get it, after all."

He tried to throw off his desperate feeling of apprehension,
chattering all sorts of comforting reasons and excuses to himself
as he scurried about the rooms with aimless haste. Try as he would,
however, when the time came, he could not read--not even of his
courage-inspiring Napoleon. The howl of the wind annoyed and appalled
him; he caught himself listening intently for sounds above and not
of the storm. A nervous, intermittent laugh broke from his lips
as he went on cursing himself for a fool to be so disturbed by
Graydon's report.

"What have I to fear from him? Why should I let that look of his
unnerve me so? Why can't I forget it? It--it didn't mean anything.
I'm a fool to think of it. Nearly two years ago, that was. Why,
he may be--" A new thought chased the old one out before it was
formed. His eyes caught sight of one of his completed models,
standing in the corner. It was the model for the guillotine.

For a long time he sat staring at the thing, a hundred impressions
forming and reforming in his brain.

"I wonder if I'll really die before he is liberated," he was saying
dumbly to himself. "I wonder if I will. There's no sign of it now.
I'm strong and well enough to live for years. Suppose he is freed
inside of a month or two, what then? By Heaven, I'd be losing the
dearest hope of my whole life. My last sight of him--that beautiful
vision behind the bars--would be spoiled, undone, wiped out. He'd
be as free as I. I won't die inside of a month, I'm sure. He'd come
here and laugh at me and he'd kill me in the end. God! I know he