“You judge me in somewhat arbitrary fashion.”

“I judge you from your life, your prejudices, even the views which you have expressed.”

“There are some of us,” he reminded her, “to whom reticence is a national gift.  I like what you said just now.  Why should you take it for granted that I am a narrow squireen?  Why shouldn’t you believe that I, too, may feel the horror of these days?”

“You feel it personally but not impersonally,” she cried.  “You feel it intellectually but not with your heart.  You cannot see that a kindred soul lives in the Russian peasant and the German labourer, the British toiler and the French artificer.  They are all pouring out their blood for the sake of their dream, a politician’s dream.  Freedom isn’t won by wars.  It must be won, if ever, by moral sacrifice and not with blood.”

“Then explain to me,” he begged, “exactly what you are doing?  What your reason is for being in communication with the German Government?  Remember that the dispatch I intercepted came from no private person in Germany.  It came from those in authority.”

“That again is not true,” she replied.  “I would ask for permission to explain all these things to you, if it were not so hopeless.”

“The case of your friends will probably be more hopeless still,” he reminded her, “after to-night.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“We shall see,” she said solemnly.  “The Russian revolution surprised no one.  Perhaps an English revolution would shake even your self-confidence.”

He made no reply.  Her blood tingled, and she could have struck him for the faint smile, almost of amusement, which for a moment parted his lips.  He was already on his feet, collecting their belongings.

“Can you help me,” he asked, “with reference to the explanations which it will be necessary to make to your aunt and to my own people?  We left this morning, if you remember, in order that you might visit the Russian Embassy and announce our betrothal.  You are, I believe, under an engagement to return and stay with my mother.”

“I cannot think about those things to-day,” she replied.  “You may take it that I am tired and that you had business.  You know my address.  May I be favoured with yours?”

He handed her a card and scribbled a telephone number upon it.  They were in the station now, and their baggage in the hands of separate porters.  She walked slowly down the platform by his side.

“Will you allow me to say,” he ventured, “how sorry I am—­for all this?”

The slight uncertainty of his speech pleased her.  She looked up at him with infinite regret.  As they neared the barrier, she held out her hand.

“I, too, am more sorry than I can tell you;” she said a little tremulously.  “Whatever may come, that is how I feel myself.  I am sorry.”

They separated almost upon the words.  Catherine was accosted by a man at whom Julian glanced for a moment in surprise, a man whose dress and bearing, confident though it was, clearly indicated some other status in life.  He glanced at Julian with displeasure, a displeasure which seemed to have something of jealousy in its composition.  Then he grasped Catherine warmly by the hand.