"Has anyone inquired for me, Stefan?"

"No, Captain, I have been undisturbed until now," the man answered in
a deep voice well suited to his frame, as he led the horse away. Knowing
his soldier-servant's weakness and his capacity for indulging in it
with impunity, Ellerey wondered how long a time he would require
undisturbed before signs of his potations showed themselves. Drink
heavily he certainly did, but since he never exhibited any ill effects
from it, at night or morning, it would have been unjust to call him
a drunkard.

The Altstrasse was of the old town, a narrow thoroughfare of gaunt
houses which now sheltered a dozen families in rooms where the wealthy
had once lived, and in which Ministers and Ambassadors had entertained
the wit, beauty, and bravery of nations. These glories had departed
to the palatial buildings which had grown up round the citadel, leaving
the Altstrasse as misfortune may leave a gentleman, the marks of
breeding evident though he be clad in rusty garments. Over the doorways,
through which tatterdemalions, men, women, and children, flocked in and
out, were handsome carvings, deep-cut crests and coats-of-arms; ragged
garments were hung to dry over handsome balustrades and
wrought-iron railings; while in the rough and broken roadway garbage,
cast there days since, lay rotting where it had fallen. Poverty had
seized upon the place, flaunting poverty, seeking no concealment.
Ellerey had passed through the Altstrasse before to-night, but the
surroundings had had no particular interest for him then. Now they
arrested his attention. What plots might not have birth and grow to
dangerous maturity in such surroundings, among such people as these?
The rabble had overrun these deserted mansions; might it not one day
hammer at the doors of the palaces by the citadel yonder with demands