The slight action and the significant question presented a coincidence so startling that Christian Almer was fascinated by it. That there was premeditation or design in the coincidence, or that the Advocate had cunningly led the conversation to this point for the purpose of confounding him and bringing him face to face with his treachery, did not suggest itself to his mind. He was, indeed, incapable of reasoning coherently. All that he was momentarily conscious of was, that discovery was imminent, that the sword hung over him, suspended by a hair. Would it fall, and in its fall compel into a definite course the conflicting passions by which he was tortured?

It would, perhaps, be better so. Already did he experience a feeling of relief at this suggestion, and it appeared to him as if he were bending his head for the welcome blow.

But all was still and quiet, and through the dim mist before his eyes he saw the Advocate gazing kindly upon him.

Then there stole upon him a wild prompting, a mad impulse, to expedite discovery by his own voluntary act--to say to the Advocate:

"I have betrayed you. Read that note beneath your hand; take this key, and open yonder door; find there your wife. What do you propose to do?"

The words did actually shape themselves in his mind, and he half believed that he had uttered them. They did not, however, escape his lips. He was instinctively restrained by the consideration that in his punishment Adelaide would be involved. What right had he deliberately to ruin and expose her? A cowardly act thus to sacrifice a woman who in this crisis relied upon him for protection. In a humiliating, shameful sense it is true, but none the less was she under his direct protection at this moment. Self-tortured as he was he could still show that he had some spark of manliness left in him. To recklessly dispose of the fate of the woman whose only crime was that she loved him--this he dared not do.

His mood changed. Arrived at this conclusion, his fear now was that he had betrayed himself--that in some indefinite way he had given the Advocate the key to his thoughts, or that he had, by look or expression, conveyed to his friend a sense of the terrible importance of the perfumed note which lay upon the desk.

"You do not answer me, Christian," said the Advocate.

But Almer could not speak. His eyes were fixed upon Adelaide's note, and he found it impossible to divert his attention from the idle movements of the Advocate's fingers. His unreasoning impulse to hasten discovery was gone, and he was afflicted now by a feeling of apprehension. It was his imperative duty to protect Adelaide; while the Advocate's hand rested upon the envelope which contained her secret she was not safe. At all risks, even at the hazard of his life, must she be held blameless. Had the Advocate lifted the envelope from the desk, Almer would have torn it from him.

"Why do you not speak?" asked the Advocate. "Surely there is nothing offensive in such a question between friends like ourselves."

"I can offer you no explanation of what I am about to say," replied Almer: "it may sound childish, trivial, pitiful, but my thoughts are not under my own control while your hand is upon that letter."

With the slightest expression of surprise the Advocate handed Almer the envelope, scarcely looking at it as it passed from his possession.

"Why did you not speak of it before?" he said. "But when a mind is unbalanced, trifling matters are magnified into importance."

"I can only ask you to forgive me," said Almer, placing the envelope in his pocket-book. "I have no doubt in the course of your career you have met with many small incidents quite as inexplicable." Then an excuse which would surely be accepted occurred to him. "It may be sufficient for me to say that this is the first night of my return to the house in which I was born and passed a not too happy boyhood, and that in this room my mother died."

The Advocate pressed Almer's hand.

"There is no need for another word. You have been looking over some old family papers, and they have aroused melancholy reminiscences. I should have been more thoughtful; I was wrong in coming to you. It will be best to say good-night."

But Almer, anxious to avoid the slightest cause for suspicion in the right direction, said:

"Nay, stay with me a few minutes longer, or I shall reproach myself for having behaved unreasonably. You were asking----"

"A delicate question. Whether you love without being loved in return?"

"No, Edward, that is not the case with me."

"You have no intention of marrying?"

"No."

"Then your heart is still free. You reassure me. You are not suffering from what has been described as the most exquisite of all human sufferings--unrequited love. Neither have you experienced a disappointment in friendship?"

"No. I have scarcely a friend with the exception of yourself."

"And my wife. You must not forget her. She takes a cordial interest in you."

"Yes, and your wife."

"It was Jacob Hartrich who suggested that you might have met with a disappointment in love or friendship. I disputed it, in the belief that had it been unhappily so you would have confided in me. I am glad that I was right. Shall I continue?"

"Yes."

"The banker, who entertains the most kindly sentiments towards you, based all his conjectures upon a certain remark which made a strong impression upon him. You told him you were weary of the gaiety and the light and bustle of cities, and that it was your intention to seek some solitude where, by a happy chance, you might rid yourself of a terror which possessed you. I can understand your weariness of the false glare of fashionable city life; it can never for any long period satisfy the intellect. But neither can it instil a terror into a man's soul. That would spring from another and a deeper cause."

"The words were hastily spoken. Look upon them as an exaggeration."

"I certainly regard them in that light, but they were not an invention, and there must have been a serious motive for them. It is not in vain that I have studied your character, although I feel that I did not master the study. I am subjecting you, Christian, to a kind of mental analysis, in an endeavour to arrive at a conclusion which will enable me to be of assistance to you. And I do not disguise from you that, were it in my power, I would assist you even against your will. Our friendship, and my age and more varied experience, would justify me. I do not seek to force your confidence, but I ask you in the spirit of true friendship to consider--not at present, but in a few days, when your mind is in a calmer state--whether such counsel and guidance as it may be in my power to offer will not be a real help to you. Do not lightly reject my assistance in probing a painful wound. I will use my knife gently. There was a time when I believed there was nothing that could happen to either of us which we should be unwilling to confide each to the other, freely and without restraint. I find I am not too old to learn the lesson that the strongest beliefs, the firmest convictions, may be seriously weakened by the occurrence of circumstances for which the wisest foresight could not have provided. Keep, then, your secret, if you are so resolved, and bear in mind that on the day you come to me and say, 'Edward, help me, guide me,' you will find me ready. I shall not fail you, Christian, in any crisis."

Almer rose and slowly paced the room, while the Advocate sat back in his chair, and watched his friend with affectionate solicitude.

"Does this lesson," presently said Almer, "which you are not too old to learn, spring entirely from the newer impressions you are receiving of my character, or has something in your mind which you have not disclosed helped to lead you to it?"

It was a chance shot, but it strangely hit the mark. The question brought forcibly to the Advocate's mind the position in which he himself was placed by Gautran's confession, and by his subsequent resolve to conceal the knowledge of Gautran's crime.

"What a web is the world!" he thought. "How the lines which here are widely apart, but a short space beyond cross and are linked in closest companionship!" Both Christian and himself had something to conceal, and it would be acting in bad faith to his friend were he to return an evasive answer.

"It is not entirely from the newer impressions you speak of that I learn the lesson. It springs partly from a matter which disturbs my mind."

"Referring to me?"

"No, to myself. You are not concerned in it."

In his turn Almer now became the questioner.

"A new experience of your own, Edward?"

"Yes."

"Which must have occurred to you since we were last together?"

"It originated during your absence."

"Which came upon you unaware--for which your foresight could not have provided?"

"At all events it did not."

"You speak seriously, Edward, and your face is clouded."

"It is a very serious matter."

"Can I help you? Is it likely that my advice would be of assistance?"

"I can speak of it to no one."

"You also have a secret then?"

"Yes, I also have a secret."

Christian Almer appeared to gather strength--a warranty, as it were, for his own wrong-doing--from the singular direction the conversation had taken. It was as though part of a burden was lifted from him. He was not the only one who was suffering--he was not the only one who was standing on a dangerous brink--he was not the only one who had drifted into dangerous waters. Even this strong-brained man, this Advocate who had seemingly held aloof from pleasure, whose days and nights had been given up to study, whose powerful intellect could pierce dark mysteries and bring them into clear light, who was the last man in the world who could be suspected of yielding to a prompting of which his judgment and conscience could not approve--even he had a secret which he was guarding with jealous care. Was it likely then, that he, the younger and the more impressionable of the two, could escape snares into which the Advocate had fallen? The fatalist's creed recurred to him. All these matters of life were preordained. What folly--what worse than folly, what presumption, for one weak man to attempt to stem the irresistible current! It was delivering himself up to destruction. Better to yield and float upon the smooth tide and accept what good or ill fate has in store for him. What use to infuse into the sunlight, and the balmy air, and into all the sweets of life, the poison of self-torture? The confession he had extracted from the Advocate was in a certain sense a justification of himself. He would pursue the subject still further. As he had been questioned, so he would question. It was but just.

"To judge from your manner, Edward, your secret is no light one."

"It is of most serious import."

"I almost fear to ask a question which occurs to me."

"Ask freely. I have been candid with you, in my desire to ascertain how I could help you in your trouble. Be equally candid with me."

"But it may be misconstrued. I am ashamed that it should have suggested itself--for which, of course, the worser part of me is responsible. No--it shall remain unspoken."

"I should prefer that you asked it--nay, I desire you to do so. There is no fear of misconstruction. Do you think I wish to stand in your eyes as a perfect man? That would be arrogant, indeed. Or that I do not know that you and I and all men are possessed of contradictions which, viewed in certain aspects, may degrade the most noble? The purest of us--men and women alike--have undignified thoughts, unworthy imaginings, to which we would be loth to give utterance. But sometimes, as in this instance, it becomes a duty. I have had occasion quite lately to question myself closely, and I have fallen in my own estimation. There is more baseness in me than I imagined. Hesitate no longer. Ask your question, and as many more as may arise from it; these things are frequently hydra-headed. I shall know how far to answer without disclosing what I desire shall remain buried."

Almer put his question boldly.

"Is the fate of a woman involved in your secret?"

An almost imperceptible start revealed to Almer's eyes that another chance arrow had hit the mark. Truly, a woman's fate formed the kernel of the Advocate's secret--a virtuous, innocent woman who had been most foully murdered. He answered in set words, without any attempt at evasion.

"Yes, a woman's fate is involved in it."

"Your wife's?" Had his life depended upon it, Almer could not have kept back the words.

"No, not my wife's."

"In that case," said Almer slowly, "a man's honour is concerned."

"You guess aright--a man's honour is concerned."

"Yours?"

"Mine."

For a few moments neither of them spoke, and then the Advocate said:

"To men suspicious of each other--as most men naturally are, and generally with reason--such a turn in our conversation, and indeed the entire conversation in which we have indulged, might be twisted to fatal disadvantage. In the way of conjecture I mean--as to what is the essence of the secret which I do not reveal to my dearest friend, and the essence of that which my dearest friend does not reveal to me. It is fortunate, Christian, that you and I stand higher than most. We have rarely hesitated to speak heart to heart and soul to soul; and if, by some strange course of events, there has arisen in each of our inner lives a mystery which we have decided not to reveal, it will not weaken the feeling of affection we entertain for each other. Is that so, Christian?"

"Yes, it is so, Edward."

"Men of action, of deep thought, of strong passion, of sensitive natures, are less their own masters than peasants who take no part in the turmoil of the world. An uneventful life presents fewer temptations, and there is therefore more freedom in it. We live in an atmosphere of wine, and often miss our way. Well, we must be indulgent to each other, and be sometimes ready to say, 'The position of difficulty into which you have been thrust, the error you have committed, the sin--yes, even the sin--of which you have been guilty, may have fallen to my lot had I been placed in similar circumstances. It is not I who will be the first to condemn you.'"

"Even," said Almer, "if that error or that sin may be a grievous wrong inflicted against yourself. Even then you would be ready to excuse and forgive?"

"Yes, even in that case. I should be taking a narrow view of an argument if I applied to all the world what I hesitated to apply to myself."

"So that the committal of a great wrong may be justified by circumstances?"

"Yes, I will go as far as that. The fault of the child or the fault of the man, is but a question of degree. Some err deliberately, some are hurried into error by passions which master them."

"By natural passions?"

"All such passions are natural, although it is the fashion to condemn them when they clash with the conditions of social life. The workings of the moral and sympathetic affections are beyond our own control."

"Of those who have erred with deliberate intention and those who have been hurried blindly into error, which should you be most ready to forgive?"

"The latter," replied the Advocate, conscious that in his answer he was condemning himself; "they are comparatively innocent, having less power over, and being less able to retrace their steps."

"You pause," said Almer, a sudden thrill agitating his veins. "Why?"

"I thought I heard a sound--like a suppressed laugh! Did you not hear it?"

"No. I heard nothing."

Almer's teeth met in scorn of himself as he uttered this falsehood. The sound of the laugh was low but distinct, and it proceeded from the room in which Adelaide was concealed.

The Advocate stepped to the door by which he had entered, and looked up and down the passage, to which two lamps gave light. It was quiet and deserted.

"My fancy," he said, standing within the half-open door. "My physicians know more of the state of my nerves than I do myself. It is interesting, however, to observe one's own mental delusions. But I was wrong in mixing myself up with that trial."

Still that trial. Always that trial. It seemed to him as if he could never forget it, as if it would forever abide with him. It coloured his thoughts, it gave form to his arguments. Would it end by changing his very nature?

"You are over-wrought, Edward," said Almer. "If you were to seek what I have sought, solitude, it might be more beneficial to you than it has been to me."

"There is solitude enough for me in this retired village," said the Advocate, "and had I not undertaken the defence of Gautran, my health by this time might have been completely established. We are here sufficiently removed from the fierce passions of the world--they cannot touch us in this primitive birthplace of yours. Do you recognise how truly I spoke when I said that men like ourselves are the slaves, and peasants the free men? Besides, Christian, there is a medicine in friendship such as yours which I defy the doctors to rival. Even though there has been a veil over our confidences to-night, I feel that this last hour has been of benefit to me. You know that I am much given to thinking to myself. As a rule, at those times, one walks in a narrow groove; if he argues, the contradiction he receives is of that mild character that it can be easily proved wrong. No wonder, when the thinker creates it for the purpose of proving himself right. It is seldom healthy, this solitary communionship--it leads rarely to just conclusions. But in conversation new byeroads reveal themselves, in which we wander pleasantly--new vistas appear--new suggestions arise, to give variety to the argument and to show that it has more than one selfish side. He who leads entirely a life of thought lives a dead life. Good-night, Christian. I have kept you from your rest. Good-night. Sleep well."