At length he spoke. “And you are willing to die?” he asked his son.

“Since it must be so—yes.”

“And you, Sonya?”

“I do not want to die, but I am quite ready.”

“And do you not regret what you have done?”

“I only regret,” said she, “that it all turned out so ill.”

There was a knock at the dungeon’s door, and the governor called that the fifteen minutes were at an end.

The general paled. A spasmodic twitching rippled across his stern, strong face.

“I must go now,” he said.

Sonya stretched out to him both her hands and her eyes filled with tears. “Good-bye, father. And in the—the future—try to see that the cause we died for——”