“Who is the third?” asked the Prince.

“There seems to be more obscurity about him than either of the others,” replied the spy.  “I heard once that he was an American, a young man of great wealth and ability, and that he had furnished much of the money needed to carry on the Brotherhood.  But this again is denied by others.  Jenkins, who was one of our party, and who was killed some months since, told me, in our last interview, that he had penetrated far enough to find out who the third man was; and he told me this curious story, which may or may not be true.  He said that several years ago there lived in this city a man of large fortune, a lawyer by education, but not engaged in the practice of his profession, by the name of Arthur Phillips.  He was a benevolent man, of scholarly tastes, and something of a dreamer.  He had made a study of the works of all the great socialist writers, and had become a convert to their theories, and very much interested in the cause of the working people.  He established a monthly journal for the dissemination of his views.  He spoke at the meetings of the workmen, and was very much beloved and respected by them.  Of course, so Jenkins said, all this was very distasteful to the ruling class (I am only repeating the story as it was told to me, your lordships will please remember), and they began to persecute him.  First he was ostracised from his caste.  But this did not trouble him much.  He had no family but his wife and one son who was away at the university.  He redoubled his exertions to benefit the working classes.  At this time he had a lawsuit about some property with a wealthy and influential man, a member of the government.  In the course of the trial Phillips produced a writing, which purported to be signed by two men, and witnessed by two others; and Phillips swore he saw all of them sign it.  Whereupon not only the men themselves, but the two witnesses to the paper, came up and swore, point-blank, that their alleged signatures were forgeries.  There were four oaths against one.  Phillips lost his case.  But this was not the worst of it.  The next day he was indicted for forgery and perjury; and, despite his wealth and the efforts of the ablest counsel he could employ, he was convicted and sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude in the state prison.  His friends said he was innocent; that he had been sacrificed by the ruling class, who feared him and desired to destroy him; that all the witnesses had been suborned by large sums of money to swear as they did; that the jury was packed, the judge one of their tools, and even his own lawyers corrupted.  After several years his son—­who bore the same name as himself—­Arthur Phillips—­returned from the university; and Jenkins told me that he had learned, in some mysterious way, that this was really the man who, out of revenge for the wrongs inflicted on his father, was now the third member of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhood, and had furnished them with large sums of money.”