r reply he pointed with his cane.

"She favours the Ministry," he said. "Your views are not hers, Lady
Eynesford."

"Oh, she knows nothing about politics."

"Perhaps it isn't all politics," he answered, with a boldly undisguised
significance.

Lady Eynesford turned quickly on him, a haughty rebuke on her lips, but
he did not quail. He smiled his bitter smile again, and she turned away
with her words unspoken.

A silence followed. Coxon was wondering if his hint had gone too far.
Lady Eynesford wondered how far he had meant it to carry. The idea of
danger there was new and strange, and perhaps absurd, but infinitely
disagreeable and disquieting.

"Well, good-bye, Lady Eynesford," he began.

"No, don't go," she answered. But before she could say more, there was a
sudden stir in the footpath, voices broke out in eager talk, groups
formed, and men ran from one to the other. Women's high voices asked for
the news, and men's deep tones declared it in answer. Coxon turned
eagerly to look, and as he did so, Kilshaw's carriage dashed up. Kilshaw
sat inside, with the evening paper in his hand. He hurriedly greeted
Lady Eynesford, and went on--

"Pray excuse me, but have you seen Sir Robert Perry? I am most anxious
to find him."

"He's there on the path," answered Coxon, and Kilshaw leapt to the
ground.

"Run and listen, and come and tell me," cried Lady Eynesford, and Coxon,
hastening off, overtook Kilshaw just as the latter came upon Sir Robert
Perry.

The news soon spread. The Premier, conscious of his danger, had
determined on a demonstration of his power. On the Sunday before that
eventful, much-discussed Monday, when the critical clause was to come
before the Legislative Assembly, he and his followers had decided to
convene mass-meetings throughout the country, in every constituency
whose member was a waverer, or suspected of being one of "Coxon's rats,"
as somebody--possibly Captain Heseltine--had nicknamed them. This was
bad, Kilshaw declared. But far worse remained: in the capital itself, in
that very Park in which they were, there was to be an immense meeting:
the Premier himself would speak, and the thousands who listened were to
threaten the recreant Legislature with vengeance if it threw out the
people's Minister.

"It's nothing more or less than an attempt to terrorise us," declared
Sir Robert, in calm and deliberate tones. "It's a most unconstitutional
and dangerous thing."

And Kilshaw endorsed h