a kindly rebuke for his desertion of him since the day of his speech; then immediately, and with characteristic clearness, it opened up the subject nearest the writer's mind. Very slowly and attentively Loder read the letter; then in the extremely quiet manner that, with him, invariably covered emotion, he moved to the desk, wrote a note, and handed it to the waiting servant. But as the man turned towards the door, he called him back. "Renwick!" he said sharply, "when you've given that letter to Mr Fraide's servant, ask Mrs Chilcote if she can spare me five minutes." When Renwick had gone and closed the door behind him, Loder began to pace the room with suddenly aroused activity. In one moment the aspect of life had been changed. Ten minutes since, he had been glorying in the risk of a barely saved situation; now that situation, with its merely social complications, had become a matter of small importance. His long striding steps had carried him to the fireplace, and his back was towards the door when at last the handle turned. He wheeled round to receive Eve's message; then a look of pleased surprise crossed his face. It was Eve herself who stood in the doorway. Without hesitation his lips parted. "Eve!" he said abruptly, "I have great news! Russia has shown her teeth at last. Two caravans belonging to a British trader were yesterday interfered with by a band of Cos sacks. The affair occurred a couple of miles outside Meshed. The traders remonstrated; but the Russians made summary use of their advantage. Two Englishmen were wounded, and one of them has since died. Fraide has only now received the news - which cannot be overrated. It gives the pre cise lever necessary for the big move at the reassembling." He spoke with great earnestness and unusual haste; and as he finished he took a step forward. "But that isn't all!" he added. "Fraide wants the great move set in motion by a great speech-and he has asked me to make it." For a moment Eve waited. She looked at him in silence, and in that silence he read in her eyes the reflection of his own thoughts. Then she also came nearer by a step. "And you?" she asked in a suppressed voice. "What answer did you give?" He watched her for an instant, taking a strange pleasure in her flushed face and brilliantly eager eyes; then the joy of conscious strength, the sense of opportunity regained, swept all other considerations out of sight. "I accepted," he said quickly. "Could any man who was merely human have done otherwise?" That was Loder's attitude and action on the night of his jeopardy and his success, and the following day found his mood unchanged. He was one of those rare individuals who never give a promise overnight to regret it in the morning. He was slow to move; but He seldom left Grosvenor Square in the days that followed, except to confer with his party. All his interest— when he did, the movement brushed all obstacles aside. In the first days of his usurpation he had gone cautiously-half all his relaxation-lay in his fascinated, half distrustful; work and what pertained to it. then the reality, the extraordi- His strength was like a solid nary tangibility of the position wall, his intelligence was as had gripped him, when, match- sharp and keen as steel. The ing himself for the first time moment was his, and by sheer with men of his own calibre, he mastery of will he put other had learned his real weight on considerations out of sight. the day of his protest against He forgot Chilcote and forthe Easter adjournment. With got Lillian-not because they that knowledge had been born escaped his memory, but bethe dominant factor in his cause he chose to shut them whole scheme-the overwhelm- from it. ing, insistent desire to manifest his power, that desire that is the salvation or the ruin of every strong man who has once realised his strength. Supremacy was the note to which his ambition reached. To trample out Chilcote's footmarks with his own had been his tacit instinct from the first; now that instinct rose paramount. It was the whole theory of creation-this survival of the fittest-this deep egotistical certainty that he was the better man. It was with this conviction that he entered on the vital period of his dual career. The imminent political crisis, and his own personal share in it, absorbed him absolutely. In the weeks that followed his answer to Fraide's proposal he gave himself ungrudgingly to his work. He wrote, read, and planned with tireless energy; he frequently forgot to eat; and he slept only through sheer exhaustion. In the fullest sense of the word he lived for the culminating hour that was to bring him failure or success. Of Eve he saw but little in this time of high pressure. When a man touches the core of his capacities, puts his best into the work that in his eyes stands paramount, there is little place for and no need of woman. She comes before-and after. She inspires, compensates, or completes; but the achievement, the creation, is man's alone. And all true women understand and yield to this unspoken precept. Eve watched the progress of his labour; and in the depth of her own heart the watching came nearer to actual living than any activity she had known. She was an onlooker but an onlooker who stood, as it were, on the steps of the arena; one who, by a single forward movement, could feel the sand under her feet, the breath of the battle on her face. There were hours when Loder seemed scarcely conscious of her existence; but this never troubled her. She knew that before half the day had passed he would come into her sitting room-his face thoughtful, his hands full of books or papersand dropping into one of the comfortable, studious chairs, would ask laconically for tea. This was her moment of triumph and recompense, for the very unconsciousness of his coming doubled its value. He would sit for half an hour with a preoccupied glance, or possibly with keen alert eyes fixed upon the fire, while his ideas sorted themselves and fell into line. Sometimes he was silent for the whole half-hour, and sometimes he commented to himself as he scanned his notes; but on other and rarer occasions he talked-speaking his thoughts and his theories aloud with the enjoyment of a man who knows himself fully in his depth-while Eve sipped her tea, or stitched peacefully at a strip of embroidery. On these occasions she made a very perfect listener. Here and there she encouraged him with an intelligent remark, but she never interrupted. She knew when to be silent and when to speak; when to merge her own individuality and when to make it felt. In these days of stress and preparation he came to her unconsciously for rest; he treated her as he might have treated a younger brother, relying on her discretion, turning to her as if by right for sympathy, comprehension, and friendship. Sometimes, as they sat silent in the richly coloured homelike room, Eve would pause over her stitching, and let her thoughts spin momentarily forward towards the point where-the brunt of his ordeal passed-he must of necessity seek something beyond mere rest. But there her thoughts would inevitably break off, and the blood flame quickly into her cheeks. Meanwhile persistently. that brought the crisis of Fraide's scheme nearer, his activity increased, and, with it, the nervous strain of the situation. For, if he had his hours of exaltation, he also had his hours of black apprehension. It is all very well to exorcise a ghost by sheer strength of will, but one has also to eliminate the idea that gave it existence. Lillian Astrupp with her unattested evidence and her ephemeral interest gave him no real uneasiness; but Chilcote, and Chilcote's possible summons, were matters of graver consideration; and there were times when they loomed very dark and sinister. What, he would sometimes ask himself, if at the moment of fulfilment- ? But there he invariably snapped the thread of his supposition, and turned with fiercer ardour to his work of preparation. Loder worked With each day And so the last morning of his probation dawned, and for the first time he breathed freely. He rose early on the day that was to witness his great effort and dressed slowly. It was a splendid morning; the spirit of the spring seemed embodied in the air, in the pale blue sky, in the shafts of cool sunshine that danced from the mirror to the dressing - table and from the dressing-table to the pictures in Chilcote's vast room. In consequently, with its dancing, its wings; then it rose again there rose to Loder's mind a and soared away. Men like of the distant past-a memory memory of long-forgotten days when, as a child, he had been bidden to watch the same sun perform the same fantastic evolutions. The sight and the thought stirred him with a curious sense of youth. He drew himself together with an added touch of decision as he passed out into the corridor, and as he walked downstairs he whistled a bar or two of an inspiriting tune. In the morning-room Eve was already waiting. She looked up, coloured, and smiled as he entered. Her face looked very fresh and young, and she wore a gown of the same pale blue that she had worn on his first coming. She had glanced up from an open letter as he came into the room, and the sun that fell through the window had caught her in a shaft of light-intensifying her blue eyes, her blue gown, and the bunch of violets fastened in her belt. To Loder-still under the influence of early memories-she seemed the embodiment of some youthful ideal; something lost, sought for, and found again. Realisation of his true feeling for her almost came to him as he stood there. It hovered about him; it tipped him, as it were, with him men keen to grasp an opening where their careers are concerned, and tenacious to hold it when once grasped― are frequently the last to see into their own hearts. He looked at her admiringly; he acknowledged the stir of his feeling; but he made no attempt to define its cause. He could no more have given reason for his sensation than he could have told the precise date upon which, coming downstairs at eight o'clock, he had first found her waiting breakfast for him. The time when all such incidents were to stand out-each to a nicety in its appointed place-had not yet arrived. For the moment, his youth had returned to him; he possessed the knowledge of work done, the sense of present companionship in a world of agreeable things-above all, the steady, quiet conviction of his own capacity. All these things came to him in the moment of his entering the room and passing to the breakfast - table. Then, while his eyes still rested contentedly on the pleasant array of china and silver, while his senses were still alive to the fresh, earthy scent of Eve's violets, the blow so long dreaded, so slow in coming, fell with accumulated force. CHAPTER XXIV. The blow fell in the form of a letter that lay awaiting him on his plate. It was written on cheap paper in a disguised hand, and the contents covered only half a page. Loder read it slowly, mentally articulating every word; then he laid it down, and as he did so he caught Eve's eyes raised in concern. Once again he read something of his own feelings reflected in her face, and the shock braced him; he picked up the letter, tearing it into strips. "I must go out," he said slowly. "I must go now-at once. His voice sounded cold and hard. concerned 'Now-at "Now Eve's surprised, eyes searched his. once?" she repeated. without breakfast?" "Oh! I'm not hungry." He rose from his seat, and carrying the slips of paper across the room dropped them into the fire. He did it, not so much from caution as from an imperative wish to do something to move, if only across the room. Eve's glance followed him. "Is it bad news?" she asked anxiously. It was unlike her to be insistent; but she was stirred to the impulse by the peculiarity of the moment. "No," he said shortly. "It's business. This was written yesterday; I should have got it last night." Her eyes widened. "But nobody does business at eight in the morning- she began in astonishment; then she suddenly broke off. Without apology or farewell, Loder had left the fireplace and passed through the door into the hall. He stepped hurriedly across the hall, picking up a hat as he went. Reaching the pavement outside, he walked briskly till Grosvenor Square was left behind; then he ran. At the risk of reputation-at the loss of dignity-he ran until he saw a cab. Hailing it, he sprang inside, and then—as the cabman whipped up and the horse responded to the callhe realised for the first time the full significance of what had occurred. Realisation-like the need for action-came to him slowly; but when it came it was with terrible lucidity. He did not swear as he leant back in his seat, mechanically watching the stream of men on their way to business-the belated cars of green produce blocking the way between the Strand and Covent Garden. He had no use for oaths-his feelings lay deeper than mere words. But his mouth was sternly set and his eyes looked cold. Outside the Law Courts he dismissed his cab, and walked forward to Clifford's Inn. As he passed through the familiar entrance a chill fell upon him. In the clear early light it seemed more than ever a place of dead hopes, dead enterprises, dead ambitions. In the onward march of life it had been forgotten. The very air had a breath of unfulfilment. He crossed the court rapidly, but his mouth set itself afresh as he passed through the doorway of his own house and crossed the bare hall. As he mounted the wellknown stairs he received his first indication of life in the appearance of a cat from the second-floor rooms. At sight of him the animal came forward, rubbed demonstratively against his legs, and, with affectionate persistence, followed him upstairs. Outside his own door he paused. On the ground stood |