started a blanket factory, and since then several other industries have
shot up. There's a huge sugar-refinery, and a place where they make
jams. That kind of thing, you know, affects the spirit of a place.
Manufacturers are generally go-ahead people, and mill-hands don't
support high Tory doctrine. It'll be interesting to see how they
muster. If Liversedge knows how to go to work"--he broke into laughter.
"Suppose, when the time comes, I go down and harangue the mob in his
favour?"

Lilian smiled and shook her head.

"I'm afraid you would be calling them 'the mob' to their faces."

"Well, why not? I dare say I should do more that way than by talking
fudge about the glorious and enlightened people. 'Look here, you
blockheads!' I should shout, 'can't you see on which side your
interests lie? Are you going to let England be thrown into war and
taxes just to please a theatrical Jew and the howling riff-raff of
London?' I tell you what, Lily, it seems to me I could make a rattling
good speech if I gave my mind to it. Don't you think so?"

"There's nothing you couldn't do," she answered, with soft fervour,
fixing her eyes upon him.

"And yet I do nothing--isn't that what you would like to add?"

"Oh, but your book is getting on!"

"Yes, yes; so it is. A capital book it'll be, too; a breezy
book--smelling of the sea-foam! But, after all, that's only pen-work. I
have a notion that I was meant for active life, after all. If I had
remained in the Navy, I should have been high up by now. I should have
been hoping for war, I dare say. What possibilities there are in every
man!"

He grew silent, and Lilian, her face shadowed once more, conversed with
her own thoughts.

CHAPTER II

In a room in the west of London--a room full of pictures and
bric-a-brac, of quaint and luxurious furniture, with volumes abundant,
with a piano in a shadowed corner, a violin and a mandoline laid
carelessly aside--two men sat facing each other, their looks expressive
of anything but mutual confidence. The one (he wore an overcoat, and
had muddy boots) was past middle age, bald, round-shouldered, dressed
like a country gentleman; upon his knees lay a small hand-bag, which he
seemed about to open, He leaned forward with a face of stern reproach,
and put a short, sharp question:

"Then why haven't I heard from you since my nephew's death?"

The other was not ready with a reply. Younger, and more fashionably
attired, he had assumed a