narcotic at once soothing and stimulating. As some wild animal in a
forgotten land, coming upon ruins of a vast civilisation, towers,
temples, and palaces, in the golden glow of an Eastern evening, stands
abashed and vaguely wondering, having neither reason to understand, nor
feeling to enjoy, yet is arrested and abashed, so he stood. He had lived
the last three years so much alone, had been cut off so completely from
his kind--had lived so much alone. Yet to-night, at last, he would not
be alone.

Some one was coming to-night, some one whom he had not seen for a long
time. Letters had passed, the object of the visit had been defined, and
he had spent the intervening days since the last letter had arrived, now
agitated, now apathetic and sullen, now struggling with some invisible
being that kept whispering in his ear, saying to him, "It was the price
of fire, and blood, and shame. You did it--you--you--you! You are down,
and you will never get up. You can only go lower still--fire, and blood,
and shame!"

Criminal as he was he had never become hardened, he had only become
degraded. Crime was not his vocation. He had no gift for it; still the
crime he had committed had never been discovered--the crime that he did
with others. There were himself and Dupont and another. Dupont was
coming to-night--Dupont who had profited by the crime, and had not spent
his profits, but had built upon them to further profit; for Dupont was
avaricious and prudent, and a born criminal. Dupont had never had any
compunctions or remorse, had never lost a night's sleep because of what
they two had done, instigated thereto by the other, who had paid them so
well for the dark thing.

The other was Henderley, the financier. He was worse perhaps than