He had noticed Vardri's exit from the room, as he noticed everything else. All the other men had been too excited to care whether one more or less was there or not. In the hot argument that raged in the upper room, the absence of one of the members of the Brotherhood was apparently forgotten.
Their leader, however, did not lose his head or his powers of observation even when matters of life or death were in the balance. Whatever he did was always done deliberately and in cold blood.
All the time he had been apparently presiding over the discussion he had also been thinking rapidly.
It would be to his ultimate advantage not to interfere with Arithelli and Vardri just now, but to let them be together, to see as much of each other as possible. It was as well that Vardri should become thoroughly infatuated, as then he would be certain to take some step that would bring things to a crisis. They would be sure to try to escape out of the country and hide themselves somewhere. They would not be the first people who had tried that sort of thing before.
In the course of his life he had known others who had flung the Cause and their vows to the winds from fear or passion and tried to hide themselves under some disguise.
If they happened to be clever and have plenty of money their escape had been fairly easy, and they had even been safe for perhaps a year or so. Then just as they had begun to feel secure and had grown careless, the vengeance of their own particular circle had overtaken them. There had been accounts in the newspapers of a mysterious tragedy to which no motive could be assigned, and for which no one could be brought to justice, and that was all.
They were all monotonously alike, these affairs!
Sobrenski had said little to anyone else of his suspicions.
No need to declare anyone a traitor till it was proven. Such things had a demoralising effect, and treachery was an infectious disease.
He descended the uneven rungs of the ladder, treading soft-footed as a cat.