As the river flowed between the world of roofs, and the roar of human
passions on either side, so in those two hearts flowed Thought--and all
they knew of London was its shadow.

CHAPTER XIV.

There appeared in the "Beehive" certain very truculent political
papers,--papers very like the tracts in the tinker's bag. Leonard did
not heed them much, but they made far more sensation in the public that
read the "Beehive" than Leonard's papers, full of rare promise though
the last were. They greatly increased the sale of the periodical in the
manufacturing towns, and began to awake the drowsy vigilance of the
Home Office. Suddenly a descent was made upon the "Beehive" and all
its papers and plant. The editor saw himself threatened with a criminal
prosecution, and the certainty of two years' imprisonment: he did
not like the prospect, and disappeared. One evening, when Leonard,
unconscious of these mischances, arrived at the door of the office, he
found it closed. An agitated mob was before it, and a voice that was
not new to his ear was haranguing the bystanders, with many imprecations
against "tyrants." He looked, and, to his amaze, recognized in the
orator Mr. Sprott the Tinker.

The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and Mr. Sprott
prudently vanished. Leonard learned, then, what had befallen, and again
saw himself without employment and the means of bread.

Slowly he walked back. "O knowledge, knowledge!--powerless, indeed!" he
murmured.

As he thus spoke, a handbill in large capitals met his eyes on a dead
wall, "Wanted, a few smart young men for India."

A crimp accosted him. "You would make a fine soldier, my man. You have
stout limbs of your own." Leonard moved on.

"It has come back then to this,--brute physical force after all! O
Mind, despair! O Peasant, be a machine again!" He entered his attic
noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen as she sat at work, straining her eyes
by the open window--with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard
him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and still she sat,
and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, and saw that her cheek
was pale and hollow, and the hands looked so thin! His heart was deeply
touched, and at that moment he had not one memory of the baffled Poet,
one thought that proclaimed the Egotist.

He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoulder, "Helen, put on
your shawl and bonnet, and walk out,--I have much to say."

In