lawn; a room
beautifully cool and odoriferous with the perfume of roses. A single
lamp was burning upon a table; for the rest, the apartment seemed full
of the soft blue twilight of the summer night. Maraton came to a
standstill with an exclamation of surprise. A tall, very slim figure in
plain dark clothes had turned from the French windows and was standing
there now, her face turned towards him a little eagerly, a strange light
upon her pale cheeks and in the eyes which seemed to shine at him almost
feverishly out of the sensuous twilight.

CHAPTER XII

"Julia!" Maraton exclaimed.

"Aaron was run over just as he was starting," she explained quickly.
"He is not hurt badly, but he wasn't able to catch the train. He had an
important letter from Manchester and one from the committee for you. We
thought it best that I should bring them. I hope we decided rightly."

She was standing out of the circle of the lamplight, in the shadows of
the room. There was a queer nervousness about her manner, a strained
anxiety in the way her eyes scarcely left his face, which puzzled him.

"It is very kind of you," he said, as he took the letters. "Please sit
down while I look at them."

The first was dated from the House of Commons:

"_Dear Mr. Maraton:_

"At a committee meeting held this afternoon here, it was resolved that I
should write to you to the following effect.

"We understood that you were coming over here entirely in the interests
of the great cause of labour, of which we, the undersigned, are the
accredited representatives in this country. Since your arrival,
however, you have preserved an independent attitude which has given
cause to much anxiety on our part. After declining to attend a meeting
at the Clarion Hall, we find you there amongst the audience, and you
address them in direct opposition to the advice which we were giving
them authoritatively. We specially invited you to be present at a
meeting of this committee to-day, in order that a definite plan of
campaign might be formulated before your visit to Manchester. You have
not accepted our invitation, and we understand that you are now staying
at the private house of the Prime Minister, notwithstanding our request
that you should not interview, or be interviewed by any representative
of the Government without one of our committee being present.

"We wish to express our dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, and
to say that should you be still inten