“Beratinsky, allowed the option of undertaking the duty from which you are released, accepts—­it is his only chance, I suppose—­poor devil! what chance is it, after all?” He put the letter back on the table.  “What is all this that has happened, Brand?”

Brand did not answer.  He had risen to his feet; he stood like one bound with chains; there was suffering and an infinite pity in the haggard face.

“Why is not Natalie here?” he said; and it was strange that two men so different from each other as Brand and Calabressa should in such a crisis have had the same instinctive thought.  The lives and fates of men were nothing; it was the heart of a girl that concerned them.  “They will tell her—­some of them over there—­they will tell her suddenly that her father is condemned to die!  Why is she—­among—­among strangers?”

He pulled out his watch hastily, but long ago the night-mail had left for Dover.  At this moment the bell rung below, and he started; it was unusual for them to have a visitor at such an hour.

“It is only that drunken fool Kirski,” Edwards said.  “I asked him to come here to-night.”

CHAPTER LIII.

THE TRIAL.

It was a dark, wet, and cold night when Calabressa felt his way down the gangway leading from the Admiralty Pier into the small Channel steamer that lay slightly rolling at her moorings.  Most of the passengers who were already on board had got to leeward of the deck-cabins, and sat huddled up there, undistinguishable bundles of rugs.  For a time he almost despaired of finding out Reitzei, but at last he was successful; and he had to explain to this particular bundle of rugs that he had changed his mind, and would himself travel with him to Naples.

It was a dirty night in crossing, and both suffered considerably; the difference being that, as soon as they got into the smooth waters of Calais harbor, Calabressa recovered himself directly, whereas Reitzei remained an almost inanimate heap of wrappings, and had to be assisted or shoved up the steep gangway into the glare of the officials’ lamps.  Then, as soon as he had got into a compartment of the railway-carriage, he rolled himself up in a corner, and sought to forget his sufferings in sleep.

Calabressa was walking up and down on the platform.  At length the bell rung, and he was about to step into the compartment, when he found himself preceded by a lady.

“I beg your pardon, madame,” said he, politely, “but it is a carriage for smokers.”

“And if one wishes to smoke, one is permitted—­is it not so?” said the stranger, cheerfully.

Calabressa at once held open the door for her, and then followed.  These three had the compartment to themselves.