lf of the human race for
centuries; you are to set yourself up against--"

"Galileo and Columbus," he suggested, quoting my words with great
cruelty.

"The modern Galileo, sir; the Columbus of this age. And you are to
conquer them! I, the father, have to submit to you the son; I the
President of fifty-seven, to you the schoolboy of twenty-one; I the
thoughtful man, to you the thoughtless boy! I congratulate you; but I
do not congratulate the world on the extreme folly which still guides
its actions." Then I left him, and going into the executive chambers,
sat myself down and cried in the very agony of a broken heart.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NEW GOVERNOR.

"So," said I to myself, "because of Jack and his love, all the
aspirations of my life are to be crushed! The whole dream of my
existence, which has come so near to the fruition of a waking moment,
is to be violently dispelled because my own son and Sir Kennington
Oval have settled between them that a pretty girl is to have her own
way." As I thought of it, there seemed to be a monstrous cruelty
and potency in Fortune, which she never could have been allowed to
exercise in a world which was not altogether given over to injustice.
It was for that that I wept. I wept to think that a spirit of honesty
should as yet have prevailed so little in the world. Here, in our
waters, was lying a terrible engine of British power, sent out by a
British Cabinet Minister,--the so-called Minister of Benevolence, by
a bitter chance,--at the instance of that Minister's nephew, to put
down by brute force the most absolutely benevolent project for the
governance of the world which the mind of man had ever projected. It
was in that that lay the agony of the blow.

I remained there alone for many hours, but I must acknowledge
that before I left the chambers I had gradually brought myself to
look at the matter in another light. Had Eva Crasweller not been
good-looking, had Jack been still at college, had Sir Kennington Oval
remained in England, had Mr Bunnit and the bar-keeper not succeeded
in stopping my carriage on the hill,--should I have succeeded in
arranging for the final departure of my old friend? That was the
question which I ought to ask myself. And even had I succeeded in
carrying my success so far as that, should I not have appeared a
murderer to my fellow-citizens had not his departure been followed in
regular sequence by that of all others till it had come to my turn?
H