they make it all abroad now by machinery--I cannot compete. They don't
want new designs they say--the old will serve. I do anything now that I
can--but it is difficult. You, too,--you starve with us!"

"I am poor, if that is what you mean," said Thord,--"but take all I
have to-night, Matsin--" and he emptied a small purse of silver coins
into the man's hand. "Bury the poor little innocent one;--and comfort
the mother when she wakes. Comfort her!--love her!--she needs love! I
will be back again to-morrow."

He strode away quickly, and Matsin remained at his door turning over
the money in his hand.

"He will sacrifice something he needs himself, for this," he muttered.
"Yet that is the man they say the King would hang if ever he got hold
of him! By Heaven!--the King himself should hang first!"

Meanwhile Sergius Thord went on, slackening his pace a little as he
came near his own destination, a tall and narrow house at the end of
the street, with a single light shining in one of the upper windows.
There was a gas-lamp some few paces off, and under this stood a man
reading, or trying to read, a newspaper by its flickering glare. Thord
glanced at him with some suspicion--the stranger was too near his own
lodging for his pleasure, for he was always on his guard against spies.
Approaching more closely, he saw that though the man was shabbily
attired in a rough pilot suit, much the worse for wear, he nevertheless
had the indefinable look and bearing of a gentleman. Acting on impulse,
as he often did, Thord spoke to him.

"A rough night for reading by lamplight, my friend!" he said.