“Wonderful indeed!” she exclaimed “Wonderful Judas! It was he who wrecked the cause. It was he who sold the lives and liberty of all of us for gold.”
“I heard a rumor of that,” Bernadine remarked, “but I never believed it.”
“It was true,” she declared passionately.
“And where is he now?” Bernadine asked.
“Dead!” she answered fiercely. “Torn to pieces, we believe, one night in a house near Moscow. May it be so!”
She was silent for a moment, as though engaged in prayer. Bernadine spoke no more of these things. He talked to her kindly, keeping up always his role of respectful but hopeful admirer.
“You will come again soon?” he begged, when, at last, she insisted upon going.
She hesitated.
“It is so difficult,” she murmured. “If my husband knew—”
Bernadine laughed, and touched her fingers caressingly.