The Price He Paid — page 285: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

276 GABRIELLE’S RETURN.—RETROSPECTIVE. ‘I have too good an opinion of you, I am too hopeful as regards your future, to allow you to ruin your- self with these wild socialist intrigues. Your head can render better service to the State than by weaving endless, fruitless conspiracies in prison or in exile. You are not the first man who has recognized his error, and become in after-time the zealous opponent of the cause he once defended, and the very pertinacity and defiance with which you now put from you the proffered means cf rescue, prove to me that I may take on myself the responsibility of readmitting you to the service, if you make up your mind to come back as one of ours. For the present, you are free, and have the choice between an honor- able, possibly brilliant, career, and ruin.” “And you chose——?” asked Gabrielle. “No,” replied Raven, bitterly. “In reality, no choice was left me. They had taken care I should be spared the pain of making one. My first endeavor was to find out how much was really lost to our cause, and how much might yet be saved. I sought out my friends, and met with a reception for which I was utterly unprepared. ‘Treason,’ they cried, on seeing me. ‘Treason,’ saluted my ears, wherever 1 showed myself. Hate, indignation, abhorrence—the whole gamut was run through. At first, I did not understand the meaning of it all— too soon it was made intelligible to me. In their eyes, I was the traitor who had brought about the discovery. My official position, the evident favor shown me by my chief, had already given rise to some distrust—and now it was clearasday. I had been the minister’s tooland spy. I had disclosed, had sold to him the secrets of our society. My own arrest, they concluded, was nothing but a blind, a preconcerted plan by which I was to be withdrawn from the vengeance of those whom I had betraved, and my prompt liberation showed beyond a doubt that I was in league with the enemy. I now found that my chief’s magnanimity had not been so com- plete as I had supposed. He had taken his precau- tions before setting me at liberty, and had thus def- Eomichooks:co