'But if someone walks behind him—to take care of him——'

'Oh, police protection?' Hamilton asked.

'Yes; certainly. Why not?'

'Out of the question. His Excellency never would stand it. He would say, "I don't choose to run life on that principle," and he would smile a benign smile on you, and you couldn't get him to say another word on the subject.'

'But we can put it on him, whether he likes it or not. Good heavens! Hamilton, you must see that it isn't only a question of him; it is a question of the credit and the honour of England, and of the London police system.'

'That's a little different from a question of the honour of England, is it not?' Hamilton asked with a smile.

'I don't see it,' Sir Rupert answered, almost angrily. 'I take it that one test of the civilisation of a society is the efficiency of its police system. I take it that if a metropolis like London cannot secure the personal safety of an honoured and distinguished guest like Ericson—himself an Englishman, too—by Jove! it forfeits in so far its claim to be considered a capital of civilisation. I really think you might put this to Ericson.'

'I think you had better put it to him yourself, Sir Rupert. He will take it better from you than he would from me. You know I have some of his own feeling about it, and if I were he I fancy I should feel as he feels. I wouldn't accept police protection against those fellows.'

'Why don't you go about with him yourself? You two would be quite enough, I dare say. He wouldn't be on his guard, but you would, for him.'

'Oh, if he would let me, that would be all right enough. I am always pretty well armed, and I have learned, from his very self, the way to use weapons. I think I could take pretty good care of him. But then, he won't always let me go with him, and he will persist in walking home from dinner parties and studying, as he says, the effect of London by night.'

'As if he were a painter or a poet,' Sir Rupert said in a tone which did not seem to imply that he considered painting and poetry among the grandest occupations of humanity.

'Why, only the other night,' Hamilton said, 'I was dining with some fellows from the United States at the Buckingham Palace Hotel, and I walked across St. James's Park on my way to look in at the Voyagers' Club, and as I was crossing the bridge I saw a man leaning on it and looking at the pond, and the sky, and the moon—and when I came nearer I saw it was his Excellency—and not a policeman or any other human being but myself within a quarter of a mile of him. It was before I had had any warning about him; but, by Jove! it made my blood run cold.'

'Did you make any remonstrance with him?'

'Of course I did. But he only smiled and turned it off with a joke—said he didn't believe in all that subterranean conspiracy, and asked whether I thought that on a bright moonlight night like that he shouldn't notice a band of masked and cloaked conspirators closing in upon him with daggers in their hands. No, it's no use,' Hamilton wound up despondingly.

'Perhaps I might try,' Sir Rupert said.

'Yes, I think you had better. At all events, he will take it from you. I don't think he would take it from me. I have worried him too much about it, and you know he can shut one up if he wants to.'

'I tell you what,' Sir Rupert suddenly said, as if a new idea had dawned upon him. 'I think I'll get my daughter to try what she can do with him.'

'Oh—yes—how is that?' Hamilton asked, with a throb at his heart and a trembling of his lips.

'Well, somehow I think my daughter has a certain influence over him—I think he likes her—of course, it's only the influence of a clever child and all that sort of thing—but still I fancy that something might be made to come of it. You know she professes such open homage for him, and she is all devoted to his cause—and he is so kind to her and puts up so nicely with all her homage, which, of course, although she is my daughter and I adore her, must, I should say, bore a man of his time of life a good deal when he is occupied with quite different ideas—don't you think so, Hamilton?'

'I can't imagine a man at any time of life or with any ideas being bored by Miss Langley,' poor Hamilton sadly replied.

'That's very nice of you, Hamilton, and I am sure you mean it, and don't say it merely to please me—and she likes you ever so much, that I know, for she has often told me—but I think I could make some use of her influence over him. Don't you think so? If she were to ask him as a personal favour—to her and to me, of course—leaving the Government altogether out of the question—as a personal favour to her and to me to take some care of himself—don't you think he could be induced? He is so chivalric in his nature that I don't think he would refuse anything to a young woman like her.'

'What is there that I could refuse to her;' poor Hamilton thought sadly within himself. 'But she will not care to plead to me that I should take care of my life. She thinks my poor, worthless life is safe enough—as indeed it is—who cares to attack me?—and even if it were not safe, what would that be to her?' He thought at the moment that it would be sweetness and happiness to him to have his life threatened by all the assassins and dynamiters in the world if only the danger could once induce Helena Langley to ask him to take a little better care of his existence.

'What do you think of my idea?' Sir Rupert asked. He seemed to find Hamilton's silence discouraging. Perhaps Hamilton knew that the Dictator would not like being interfered with by any young woman. For the fondest of fathers can never quite understand why the daughter, whom he himself adores, might not, nevertheless, seem sometimes a little of a bore to a man who is not her father.

Hamilton pulled himself together.

'I think it is an excellent idea, Sir Rupert—in fact, I don't know of any other idea that is worth thinking about.'

'Glad to hear you say so, Hamilton,' Sir Rupert said, greatly cheered. 'I'll put it in operation at once. Good-bye.'



CHAPTER XIII

DOLORES ON THE LOOK-OUT

Captain Sarrasin when he was in the hotel always had breakfast in his little sitting-room. A very modest breakfast it was, consisting invariably of a cup of coffee and some dry toast with a radish. Of late, when he emerged from his bedroom he always found a little china jar on his breakfast-table with some fresh flowers in it. He thought this a delightful attention at first, and assumed that it would drop after a day or two, like other formal civilities of a hotel-keeper. But the days went on and the flowers came, and Captain Sarrasin thought that at least he ought to make it known that he received and appreciated them, and was grateful.

So he took care to be in the breakfast-room one day while the waiter was laying out the breakfast things, and crowning the edifice metaphorically with the little china jar and its fresh flowers—roses this time. Sarrasin knew enough to know that the deftest-handed waiter in the world had never arranged that cluster of roses and moss and leaves.

'Now, look here, dear boy,' he asked of the waiter in his beaming way—Sarrasin hardly ever addressed any personage of humbler rank without some friendly and encouraging epithet, 'to whom am I indebted for these delightful morning gifts of flowers?'

'To Miss Dolores—Miss Paulo,' the man said. He was a Swiss, and spoke with a thick, Swiss accent.

'Miss Paulo—the daughter of the house?'

'Yes, sir; she arranges them herself every day.'

'Is that the tall and handsome young lady I sometimes see with Mr. Paulo in his room?'

'Yes; that is she.'

'But I want to thank her for her great kindness. Will you take a card from me, my dear fellow, and ask her if she will be good enough to see me?'

'Willingly, sir; Miss Dolores has her own room on this floor—No. 25. She is there every morning after she comes back from her early ride and until luncheon time.'

'After she comes back from her ride?'

'Yes, sir; Miss Dolores rides in the Park every morning and afternoon.'

This news somewhat dashed the enthusiasm of Captain Sarrasin. He liked a girl who rode, that was certain. Mrs. Sarrasin rode like that rarest of creatures, except the mermaid, a female Centaur, and if he had had a dozen daughters, they would all have been trained to ride, one better than the other. The riding, therefore, was clearly in the favour of Dolores, so far as Captain Sarrasin's estimate was concerned. But then the idea of a hotel-keeper's daughter riding in the Row and giving herself airs! He did not like that. 'When I was young,' he said, 'a girl wasn't ashamed of her father's business, and did not try to put on the ways of a class she did not belong to.' Still, he reminded himself that he was growing old, and that the world was becoming affected—and that girls now, of any order, were not like the girls in the dear old days when Mrs. Sarrasin was young. And in any case the morning flowers were a charming gift and a most delightful attention, and a gentleman must offer his thanks for them to the most affected young woman in the world. So he told the waiter that after breakfast he would send his card to Miss Paulo's room, and ask her to allow him to call on her.

'Miss Paulo will see you, of course,' the man replied. 'Mr. Paulo is generally very busy, and sees very few people, but Miss Paulo—she will see everybody for him.'

'Everybody? What about, my good young man?'

'But, monsieur, about everything—about paying bills—and complaints of gentlemen, and ladies who think they have not had value for their money, and all that sort of thing—monsieur knows.'

'Then the young lady looks after the business of the hotel?'

'Oh, yes, monsieur—always.'

That piece of news was a relief to Captain Sarrasin. Miss Dolores went up again high in his estimation, and he felt abashed at having wronged her even by the misconception of a moment. He consumed his coffee and his radish and dry toast, and he selected from the china jar a very pretty moss rose, and put it in his gallant old buttonhole, and then he rang for his friend the waiter, and sent his card to Miss Paulo. In a moment the waiter brought back the intimation that Miss Paulo would be delighted to see Captain Sarrasin at once.

Miss Paulo's door stood open, as if to convey the idea that it was an office rather than a young lady's boudoir—a place of business and not a drawing-room. It was a very pretty room, as Sarrasin saw at a glance when he entered it with a grand and old-fashioned bow, such as men make no more in these degenerate days. It was very quietly decorated with delicate colours, and a few etchings and many flowers; and Dolores herself came from behind her writing desk, smiling and blushing, to meet her tall visitor. The old soldier scanned her as he would have scanned a new recruit, and the result of his impressionist study was to his mind highly satisfactory. He already liked the girl.

'My dear young lady,' he began, 'I have to introduce myself—Captain Sarrasin. I have come to thank you.'

'No need to introduce yourself or to thank me,' the girl said, very simply. 'I have wanted to know you this long time, Captain Sarrasin, and I sent you flowers every morning, because I knew that sooner or later you would come to see me. Now won't you sit down, please?'

'But may I not thank you for your flowers?'

'No, no, it is not worth while. And besides, I had an interested object. I wanted to make your acquaintance and to talk to you.'

'I am so glad,' he said gravely. 'But I am afraid I am not the sort of man young ladies generally care to talk to. I am a battered old soldier who has been in many wars, as Burns says——'

'That is one reason. I believe you have been in South America?'

'Yes, I have been a great deal in South America.'

'In the Republic of Gloria?'

'Yes, I have been in the Republic of Gloria.'

'Do you know that the Dictator of Gloria is staying in this house?'

'My dear young lady, everyone knows that.'

'Are you on his side or against him?' Dolores asked bluntly.

'Dear young lady, you challenge me like a sentry.' And Captain Sarrasin smiled benignly, feeling, however, a good deal puzzled.

'I have been told that you are against him,' the girl said; 'and now that I see you I must say that I don't believe it.'

'Who told you that I was against him?' the stout old Paladin asked; 'and why shouldn't I be against him if my conscience directed me that way?'

'Well, it was supposed that you might be against him. You are both staying in this hotel, and, until the other day, you have never called upon him or gone to see him, or even sent your card to him. That seemed to my father a little strange. He talked of asking you frankly all about it. I said I would ask you. And I am glad to have got you here, Captain Sarrasin, to challenge you like a sentry.'

'Well, but now look here, my dear young lady—why should your father care whether I was for the Dictator or against him?'

'Because if you were against him it might not be well that you were in the same house,' Dolores answered with business-like promptitude and straightforwardness, 'getting to know what people called on him, and how long they stayed, and all that.'

'Playing the spy, in fact?'

'Such things have been done, Captain Sarrasin.'

'By gentlemen and soldiers, Miss Paulo?' and he looked sternly at her. The unabashed damsel did not quail in the least.

'By persons calling themselves gentlemen and soldiers,' she answered fearlessly. The old warrior smiled. He liked her courage and her frankness. It was clear that she and her father were devoted friends of the Dictator. It was clear that somebody had suspected him of being one of the Dictator's political enemies. He took to Dolores.

'My good young lady,' he said, 'you seem to me a very true-hearted girl. I don't know why, but that is the way in which I take your measure and add you up.'

Dolores was a little amazed at first; but she saw that his eyes expressed nothing save honest purpose, and she did not dream of being offended by his kindly patronising words.

'You may add me up in any way you like,' she said. 'I am pretty good at addition myself, and I think I shall come out that way in the end.'

'I know it,' he said, with a quite satisfied air, as if her own account of herself had settled any lingering doubt he might possibly have had upon his mind. 'Very well; now you say you can add up figures pretty well—and, in fact, I know you do, because you help your father to keep his books, now don't you?'

'Of course I do,' she answered promptly, 'and very proud of it I am that I can assist him.'

'Quite right, my dear. Well, now, as you are so good in figuring up things, I wonder could you figure me up?'

There was something so comical in the question, and in the manner and look of the man who propounded it, that Dolores could not keep from a smile, and indeed could hardly prevent the smile from rippling into a laugh. For Captain Sarrasin threw back his head, stiffened up his frame, opened widely his grey eyes, compressed his lips, and in short put himself on parade for examination.

'Figure me up,' he said, 'and be candid with it, dear girl. Say what I come up to in your estimation.'

Dolores tried to take the whole situation seriously.

'Look into my eyes,' he said imperatively. 'Tell me if you see anything dishonest or disloyal, or traitorous there?'

With her never-failing shrewd common sense, the girl thought it best to play the play out. After all, a good deal depended on it, to her thinking. She looked into his eyes. She saw there an almost childlike sincerity of purpose. If truth did not lie in the well of those eyes, then truth is not to be found in mortal orbs at all. But the quick and clever Dolores did fancy that she saw flashing now and then beneath the surface of those eyes some gleams of fitfulness, restlessness—some light that the world calls eccentric, some light which your sound and practical man would think of as only meant to lead astray—to lead astray, that is, from substantial dividends and real property, and lucky strokes on the Stock Exchange, and peerages and baronetcies and other good things. There was a strong dash of the poetic about Dolores, for all her shrewd nature and her practical bringing-up, and her conflicts over hotel bills; and somehow, she could not tell why, she found that as she looked into the eyes of Captain Sarrasin her own suddenly began to get dimmed with tears.

'Well, dear girl,' he asked, 'have you figured me up, and can you trust me?'

'I have figured you up,' she said warmly, 'and I can trust you;' and with an impulse she put her hand into his.

'Trust me anywhere—everywhere?'

'Anywhere—everywhere!' she murmured passionately.

'All right,' he said, cheerfully. 'I have the fullest faith in you, and now that you have full faith in me we can come straight at things. I want you to know my wife. She would be very fond of you, I am quite sure. But, now, for the moment: You were wondering why I am staying in this hotel?'

'I was,' she said, with some hesitancy, 'because I didn't know you——'

'And because you were interested in the Dictator of Gloria?'

She felt herself blushing slightly; but his face was perfectly serious and serene. He was evidently regarding her only in the light of a political partisan. She felt ashamed of her reddening cheeks.

'Yes; I am greatly interested in him,' she answered quite proudly; 'so is my father.'

'Of course he is, and of course you are—and, of course, so is every Englishman and Englishwoman who has the slightest care for the future fortunes of Gloria—which may be one of the best homes in the world for some of our poor people from this stifling country, if only a man like Ericson can be left to manage it. Well, well, I am wandering off into matters which you young women can't be expected to understand, or to care anything about.'

'But I do understand them—and I do care a great deal about them,' Dolores said indignantly. 'My father understands all about Gloria—and he has told me.'

'I am glad to hear it,' Sarrasin said gravely. 'Well, now, to come back——' and he paused.

'Yes, yes,' she said eagerly, 'to come back?'

'I am staying in this hotel for a particular purpose. I want to look after the Dictator. That's the whole story. My wife and I have arranged it all.'

'You want to look after him? Is he in danger?' The girl was turning quite pale.

'Danger? Well, it is hard to say where real danger is. I find, as a rule, that threatened men live long, and that there isn't much real danger where danger is talked about beforehand, but I never act upon that principle in life. I am never governed in my policy by the fact that the cry of wolf has been often raised—I look out for the wolf all the same.'

'Has he enemies?'

'Has he enemies? Why, I wonder at a girl of your knowledge and talent asking a question like that! Is there a scoundrel in Gloria who is not his enemy? Is there a man who has succeeded in getting any sinecure office from the State who doesn't know that the moment Ericson comes back to Gloria out he goes, neck and crop? Is there a corrupt judge in Gloria who wouldn't, if he could, sentence Ericson to be shot the moment he landed on the coast of Gloria? Is there a perjured professional informer who doesn't hate the very name of Ericson? Is there a cowardly blackguard in the army, who has got promotion because the general liked his pretty wife—oh, well, I mean because the general happened to be some relative of his wife—is there any fellow of this kind who doesn't hate Ericson and dread his coming back to Gloria?'

'No, I suppose not,' Dolores sadly answered. Paulo's Hotel was like other hotels, a gossiping place, and it is to be feared that Dolores understood better than Captain Sarrasin supposed, the hasty and speedily-qualified allusion to the General and the pretty wife.

'Well, you see,' Sarrasin summed up, 'I happen to have been in Gloria, and know something of what is going on there. I studied the place a little bit before Ericson had left, and I got to know some people. I am what would have been called in other days a soldier of fortune, dear girl, although, Heaven knows! I never made much fortune by my soldiering—you should just ask my wife! But anyhow, you know, when I have been in a foreign country where things are disturbed people send to me and offer me jobs, don't you see? So in that way I found that the powers that be in Gloria at present'—Sarrasin was fond of good old phrases like 'the powers that be'—'the powers that be in Gloria have a terrible dread of Ericson's coming back. I know a lot about it. I can tell you they follow everything that is going on here. They know perfectly well how thick he is with Sir Rupert Langley, the Foreign Secretary, and they fancy that means the support of the English Government in any attempt to return to Gloria. Of course, we know it means nothing of the kind, you and I.'

'Of course, of course,' Dolores said. She did not know in the least whether it did or did not mean the support of the English Government; for her own part, she would have been rather inclined to believe that it did. But Captain Sarrasin evidently wanted an answer, and she hastened to give him the answer which he evidently wanted.

'But they never can understand that,' he added. 'The moment a man dines with a Secretary of State in London they get it into their absurd heads that that means the pledging of the whole Army, Navy, and Reserve Forces of England to any particular cause which the man invited to dinner may be supposed to represent. Here, in nine cases out of ten, the man invited to dinner does not exchange one confidential word with the Secretary of State, and the day but one after the dinner the Secretary of State has forgotten his very existence.'

'Oh, but is that really so?' Dolores asked, in a somewhat aggrieved tone of voice. She was disposed to resent the idea of any Secretary of State so soon forgetting the existence of the Dictator.

'Not in this case, dear girl—not in this case certainly. Sir Rupert and Ericson are great friends; and they say Ericson is going to marry Sir Rupert's daughter.'

'Oh, do they?' Dolores asked earnestly.

'Yes, they do; and the Gloria folk have heard of it already, I can tell you; and in their stupid outsider sort of way they go on as if their little twopenny-halfpenny Republic were being made an occasion for great state alliances on the part of England.'

'What is she like?' Dolores murmured faintly. 'Is she very pretty? Is she young?'

'I am told so,' Sarrasin answered vaguely. To him the youth or beauty of Sir Rupert's daughter was matter of the slightest consideration.

'Told what?' Dolores asked somewhat sharply. 'That she is young and pretty, or that she isn't?'

'Oh, that she is young and very pretty, quite a beauty they tell me; but you know, my dear, that with Royal Princesses and very rich girls a little beauty goes a long way.'

'It wouldn't with him,' Dolores answered emphatically.

'With whom?' Captain Sarrasin asked blankly, and Dolores saw that she had all unwittingly put herself in an awkward position. 'I meant,' she tried to explain, 'that I don't think his Excellency would be governed much by a young woman's money.'

'But, my dear girl, where are we now? Did I ever say he would be?'

'Oh, no,' she replied meekly, and anxious to get back to the point of the conversation. 'Then you think, Captain Sarrasin, that his Excellency has enemies here in London—enemies from Gloria, I mean.'

'I shouldn't wonder in the least if he had,' Sarrasin replied cautiously. 'I know there are some queer chaps from Gloria about in London now. So we come to the point, dear girl, and now I answer the question we started with. That's why I am staying in this hotel.'

Dolores drew a deep breath.

'I knew it from the first,' Dolores said. 'I was sure you had come to watch over him.'

'That's exactly why I am here. Some of them, perhaps, will only know me by name as a soldier of fortune, and may think that they could manage to humbug me and get me over to their side. So they'll probably come to me and try to talk me over, don't you see? They'll try to make me believe that Ericson was a tyrant and a despot, don't you know; and that I ought to go back to Gloria and help the Republic to resist the oppressor, and so get me out of the way and leave the coast clear to them—see? Others of them will know pretty well that where I am on watch and ward, I am the right man in the right place, and that it isn't of much use their trying on any of their little assassination dodges here—don't you see?'

Dolores was profoundly touched by the simple vanity and the sterling heroism of this Christian soldier—for she could not account him any less. She believed in him with the fullest faith.

'Does his Excellency know of this?' she asked.

'Know of what, my dear girl?'

'About these plots?' she asked impatiently.

'I don't suppose he thinks about them.'

'All the more reason why we should,' Dolores said emphatically.

'Of course. There are lots of foreign fellows always staying here,' Sarrasin said, more in the tone of one who asks a question than in that of one who makes an assertion.

'Yes—yes—of course,' Dolores answered.

'I wonder, now, if you would be able to pick out a South American foreigner from the ordinary Spanish or Italian foreigner?'

'Oh, yes—I think so,' Dolores answered after a second or two of consideration. 'Moustache more curled—nose more thick—general air of swagger.'

'Yes—you haven't hit it off badly at all. Well, keep a look-out for any such, and give me the straight tip as soon as you can—and keep your eyes and your senses well about you.'

'You may trust me to do that,' the girl said cheerily.

'Yes, I know we can. Now, how about your father?'

'I think it will be better not to bring father into this at all,' Dolores answered very promptly.

'No, dear girl? Now, why not?'

'Well, perhaps it would seem to him wrong not to let out the whole thing at once to the authorities, or not to refuse to receive any suspicious persons into the house at all, and that isn't, by any means, what you and I are wanting just now, Captain Sarrasin!'

'Why, certainly not,' the old soldier said, with a beaming smile. 'What a clever girl you are! Of course, it isn't what we want; we want the very reverse; we want to get them in here and find out all about them! Oh, I can see that we shall be right good pals, you and I, dear girl, and you must come and see my wife. She will appreciate you, and she is the most wonderful woman in the world.'



CHAPTER XIV

A SICILIAN KNIFE

The day had come when the Dictator was to dine with that 'happy warrior,' the Soldier of Fortune.

Captain Sarrasin and his wife lived in an old-fashioned house on the farther fringe of Clapham Common. The house was surrounded by trees, and had a pretty lawn, not as well kept as it might be, for Captain Sarrasin and his wife were wanderers, and did not often make any long stay at their home in the southern suburbs of London. There were many Scotch firs among the trees on the lawn, and there was a tiny pool within the grounds which had a tinier islet on its surface, and on the tiny islet a Scotch fir stood all alone. The place had been left to Mrs. Sarrasin years and years ago, and it suited her and her husband very well. It kept them completely out of the way of callers and of a society for which they had neither of them any manner of inclination. Mrs. Sarrasin never remained actually in town while she was in London—indeed, she seldom went into London, and when she did she always, however late the hour, returned to her Clapham house. Sarrasin often had occasion to stay in town all night, but whenever he could get away in time he was fond of tramping the whole distance—say, from Paulo's Hotel to the farther side of Clapham Common. He loved a night walk, he said.

Business and work apart, he and his wife were company for each other. They had no children. One little girl had just been shown to the light of day—it could not have seen the daylight with its little closed-up eyes doomed never to open—and then it was withdrawn into darkness. They never had another child. When a pair are thus permanently childless, the effect is usually shown in one of two ways. They both repine and each secretly grumbles at the other—or if one only repines, that comes to much the same thing in the end—or else they are both drawn together with greater love and tenderness than ever. All the love which the wife would have given to the child is now concentrated on the husband, and all the love the husband would have given to the infant is stored up for the wife. A first cause of difference, or of coldness, or of growing indifference between a married pair is often on the birth of the first child. If the woman is endowed with intense maternal instinct she becomes all but absorbed in the child, and the husband, kept at a little distance, feels, rightly or wrongly, that he is not as much to her as he was before. Before, she was his companion; now she has got someone else to look after and to care about. It is a crisis which sensible and loving people soon get over—but all people cannot be loving and sensible at once and always—and there does sometimes form itself the beginning of a certain estrangement. This probably would not have happened in the case of the Sarrasins, but certainly if they had had children Mrs. Sarrasin would no longer have been able to pad about the round world wherever her husband was pleased to ask her to accompany him. If in her heart there were now and again some yearnings for a child, some pangs of regret that a child had not been given to her or left with her, she always found ready consolation in the thought that she could not have been so much to her husband had the Fates imposed on her the sweet and loving care of children.

The means of the Sarrasins were limited; but still more limited were their wants. She had a small income—he had a small income—the two incomes put together did not come to very much. But it was enough for the Sarrasins; and few married couples of middle age ever gave themselves less trouble about money. They were able to go abroad and join some foreign enterprise whenever they felt called that way, and, poor as he was, Sarrasin was understood to have helped with his purse more than one embarrassed cause or needy patriot. The chief ornaments and curios of their house were weapons of all kinds, each with some story labelled on to it. Captain Sarrasin displayed quite a collection of the uniforms he had worn in many a foreign army and insurgent band, and of the decorations he had received and doubtless well earned. Mrs. Sarrasin, for her part, could show anyone with whom she cared to be confidential a variety of costumes in which she had disguised herself, and in which she had managed either to escape from some danger, or, more likely yet, to bring succour of some sort to others who were in danger.

Mrs. Sarrasin was a woman of good family—a family in the veins of which flowed much wild blood. Some of the men had squandered everything early, and then gone away and made adventurers of themselves here and there. Certain of these had never returned to civilisation again. With the women the wild strain took a different line. One became an explorer, one founded a Protestant sisterhood for woman's missionary labour, and diffused itself over India, and Thibet, and Burmah, and other places. A third lived with her husband in perpetual yachting—no one on board but themselves and the crew. A steady devotion to some one object which had nothing to do with the conventional purposes or ambitions or comforts of society, was the general characteristic of the women of that family. None of them took to mere art or literature or woman's suffrage. Mrs. Sarrasin fell in love with her husband, and devoted herself to his wild, wandering, highly eccentric career.

Mrs. Sarrasin was a tall and stately woman, with an appearance decidedly aristocratic. She had rather square shoulders, and that sort of repression or suppression of the bust which conies of a woman's occupying herself much in the more vigorous pursuits and occupations which habitually belong to a man. Mrs. Sarrasin could ride like a man as well as like a woman, and in many a foreign enterprise she had adopted man's clothing regularly. Yet there was nothing actually masculine about her appearance or her manners, and she had a very sweet and musical voice, which much pleased the ears of the Dictator.

Oisin mentioned the fact of his wife's frequent appearance in man's dress with an air of pride in her versatility.

'Oh, but I haven't done that for a long time,' she said, with a light blush rising to her pale cheek. 'I haven't been out of my petticoats for ever so long. But I confess I did sometimes enjoy a regular good gallop on a bare-backed horse, and riding-habits won't do for that.'

'Few men can handle a rifle as that woman can,' Sarrasin remarked, with another gleam of pride in his face.

The Dictator expressed his compliments on the lady's skill in so many manly exercises, but he had himself a good deal of the old-fashioned prejudice against ladies who could manage a rifle and ride astride.

'All I have done,' Mrs. Sarrasin said, 'was to take the commands of my husband and be as useful as I could in the way he thought best. I am not for Woman's Rights, Mr. Ericson—I am for wives obeying their husbands, and as much as possible effacing themselves.'

The Dictator did not quite see that following one's husband to the wars in man's clothes was exactly an act of complete self-effacement on the part of a woman. But he could see at a glance that Mrs. Sarrasin was absolutely serious and sincere in her description of her own condition and conduct. There was not the slightest hint of the jocular about her.

'You must have had many most interesting and extraordinary experiences,' the Dictator said. 'I hope you will give an account of them to the world some day.'

'I am already working hard,' Mrs. Sarrasin said, 'putting together materials for the story of my husband's life—not mine; mine would be poor work indeed. I am in my proper place when I am acting as his secretary and his biographer.'

'And such a memory as she has,' Sarrasin exclaimed. 'I assure your Excellency'—Ericson made a gesture as if to wave away the title, which seemed to him ridiculous under present circumstances, but Sarrasin, with a movement of polite deprecation, repeated the formality—'I assure your Excellency that she remembers lots of things happening to me——'

'Or done by you,' the lady interposed.

'Well, or done by me; things that had wholly passed out of my memory.'

'Quite natural,' Mrs. Sarrasin observed, blandly, 'that you should forget them, and that I should remember them.' There was something positively youthful about the smile that lighted up her face as she said the words, and Ericson noticed that she had a peculiarly sweet and winning smile, and that her teeth could well bear the brightest light of day. Ericson began to grow greatly interested in her, and to think that if she was a little of an oddity it was a pity we had not a good many other oddity women going round.

'I should like to see what you are doing with your husband's career, Mrs. Sarrasin,' he said, 'if you would be kind enough to let me see. I have been something of a literary man myself—was at one time—and I delight in seeing a book in some of its early stages. Besides, I have been a wanderer and even a fighter myself, and perhaps I might be able to make a suggestion or two.'

'I shall be only too delighted. Now, Oisin, my love, you must not object. His Excellency knows well that you are a modest man by nature, and do not want to have anything made of what you have done; but as he wishes to see what I am doing——'

'Whatever his Excellency pleases,' Captain Sarrasin said, with a grave bow.

'Dinner is served,' the man-servant announced at this critical moment.

'You shall see it after dinner,' Mrs. Sarrasin said, as she took the Dictator's arm, and led him rather than accompanied him out of the drawing-room and down the stairs.

'What charming water-colours!' the Dictator said, as he noticed some pictures hung on the wall of the stairs.

'Oh, these? I am so pleased that you like them. I am very fond of drawing; it often amuses me and helps to pass away the time. You see, I have no children to look after, and Oisin is a good deal away.'

'Not willingly, I am sure.'

'No, no, not willingly. Dear Oisin, he has always my approval in everything he does. He is my child—my one child—my big child—so I tell him often.'

'But these water-colours. I really must have a good look at them by-and-by. And they are so prettily and tastefully framed—so unlike the sort of frame one commonly sees in London houses.'

'The frames—yes—well, I make them to please myself and Oisin.'

'You make them yourself.'

'Oh, yes; I am fond of frame-making, and doing all sorts of jobs of that kind.'

By this time they had reached the dining-room. It was a very pretty little room, its walls not papered, but painted a soft amber colour. No pictures were on the walls.

'I like the idea of your walls,' Ericson said. 'The walls are themselves the decoration.'

'Yes,' she said, 'that was exactly our idea—let the colour be the decoration; but I don't know that I ever heard anyone discover the idea before. People generally ask me why I don't have pictures on the dining-room walls, and then I have to explain as well as I can that the colour is decoration enough.'

'And then, I suppose, some of them look amazed, and can't understand how you——'

'Oh, indeed, yes,' she answered.

The dinner was simple and unpretentious, but excellent, almost perfect in its way. A clear soup, a sole, an entree or two, a bit of venison, a sweet—with good wines, but not too many of them.

'You have a good cook, Mrs. Sarrasin,' the Dictator said.

'I am made proud by your saying so. We don't keep a cook—I do it all myself—am very fond of cooking.'

The Dictator looked round at her in surprise. Was this a jest? Oh, no; there was no jesting expression on Mrs. Sarrasin's face. She was merely making a statement of fact. Ericson began to suspect that the one thing which the lady had least capacity for making, or, perhaps, for understanding, was a jest. But he was certainly amazed at the versatility of her accomplishments, and he frankly told her so.

'You see, we have but a small income,' she explained quietly, 'and I like to do all I can; and Oisin likes my cookery—he is used to it. We only keep two maids and this man'—alluding to the momentarily absent attendant—'and he was an old soldier of Oisin's. I will tell you his story some time—it is interesting in its way.'

'I think everything in this house is interesting,' the Dictator declared in all sincerity.

Captain Sarrasin talked but little. He was quite content to hear his wife talk with the Dictator and to know that she was pleased, and to believe that the Dictator was pleased with her. That, however, he assumed as a matter of course—everybody must be pleased with that woman.

After dinner the Dictator studied the so-called autobiography. It was a marvellously well-ordered piece of composition as far as it went. It was written in the neatest of manuscript, and had evidently been carefully copied and re-copied so that the volume now in his hands was about as good as any print. It was all chaptered and paged most carefully. It was rich with capital pencil sketches and even with etchings. There was no trace of any other hand but the one that he could find out in the whole volume. He greatly admired the drawings and etchings.

'These are yours, of course?' he said, turning his eyes on Mrs. Sarrasin.

'Oh, yes; I like to draw for this book. I hope it will have a success. Do you think it will?' she asked wistfully.

'A success in what way, Mrs. Sarrasin? Do you mean a success in money?'

'Oh, no; we don't care about that. I suppose it will cost us some money.'

'I fancy it will if you have all these illustrations, and of course you will?'

'Yes, I want them to be in, because I think I can show what danger my husband has been in better with my pencil than with my pen—I am a poor writer.'

'Then the work is really all your own?'

'Oh, yes; he has no time; I could not have him worried. It is my wish altogether, and he yields to it—only to please me. He does not care in the least for publicity—I do, for him.'

The Dictator began to be impressed, for the first time, by a recognition of the fact that an absence of the sacred gift of humour is often a great advantage to mortal happiness, and even to mortal success. There was clearly and obviously a droll and humorous side to the career and the companionship of Captain Sarrasin and his wife. How easy it would be to make fun of them both! perhaps of her more especially. Cheap cynicism could hardly find in the civilised world a more ready and defenceless spoil. Suppose, then, that Sarrasin or his wife had either of them any of the gift—if it be a gift and not a curse—which turns at once to the ridiculous side of things, where would this devoted pair have been? Why, of course they would have fallen out long ago. Mrs. Sarrasin would soon have seen that her husband was a ridiculous old Don Quixote sort of person, whom she was puffing and booming to an unconscionable degree, and whom people were laughing at. Captain Sarrasin would have seen that his wife was unconsciously 'bossing the show,' and while professing to act entirely under his command was really doing everything for him—was writing his life while declaring to everybody that he was writing it himself. Now they were like two children—like brother and sister—wrapped up in each other, hardly conscious of any outer world, or, perhaps, still more like two child-lovers—like Paul and Virginia grown old in years, but not in feelings. The Dictator loved humour, but he began to feel just now rather glad that there were some mortals who did not see the ridiculous side of life. He felt curiously touched and softened.

Suddenly the military butler came in and touched his forehead with a sort of military salute.

'Telegram for his Excellency,' he said gravely.

Ericson took the telegram. 'May I?' he asked of Mrs. Sarrasin, who made quite a circuitous bow of utter assent.

Ericson read.

'Will you meet me to-night at eleven, on bridge, St. James's Park. Have special reason.—Hamilton.'

Ericson was puzzled.

'This is curious,' he said, looking up at his two friends. 'This is a telegram from my friend and secretary and aide-de-camp, and I don't know what else—Hamilton—asking me to meet him in St. James's Park, on the bridge, at eleven o'clock. Now, that is a place I am fond of going to—and Hamilton has gone there with me—but why he should want to meet me there and not at home rather puzzles me.'

'Perhaps,' Captain Sarrasin suggested, 'there is someone coming to see you at your hotel later on, for whose coming Mr. Hamilton wishes to prepare you.'

'Yes, I have thought of that,' Ericson said meditatively; 'but then he signs himself in an odd sort of way.'

'Eh, how is that?' Sarrasin asked. 'It is his name, surely, is it not—Hamilton?'

'Yes, but I had got into a way years ago of always calling him "the Boy," and he got into a way of signing himself "Boy" in all our confidential communications, and I haven't for years got a telegram from him that wasn't signed "Boy."'

Mrs. Sarrasin sent a flash of her eyes that was like a danger signal to her husband. He at once understood, and sent another signal to her.

'Of course I must go,' Ericson said. 'Whatever Hamilton does, he has good reason for doing. One can always trust him in that.'

Captain Sarrasin was about to interpose something in the way of caution, but his wife flashed another signal at him, and he shut up.

'And so I must go,' the Dictator said, 'and I am sorry. I have had a very happy evening; but you will ask me again, and I shall come, and we shall be good friends. Shall we not, Mrs. Sarrasin?'

'I hope so,' said the lady gravely. 'We are devoted to your Excellency, and may perhaps have a chance of proving it one day.'

The Dictator had a little brougham from Paulo's waiting for him. He took a kindly leave of his host and hostess. He lifted Mrs. Sarrasin's long, strong, slender hand in his, and bent over it, and put it to his lips. He felt drawn towards the pair in a curious way, and he felt as if they belonged to a different age from ours—as if Sarrasin ought to have been another Goetz of Berlichingen, about whom it would have been right to say, 'So much the worse for the age that misprizes thee'; as if she were the mail-clad wife of Count Robert of Paris.

When he had gone, up rose Mrs. Sarrasin and spake:—

'Now, then, Oisin, let us go.'

'Where shall we go?' Oisin asked rather blankly.

'After him, of course.'

'Yes, of course, you are quite right,' Sarrasin said, suddenly waking up at the tone of her voice to what he felt instinctively must be her view of the seriousness of the situation. 'You don't believe, my love, that that telegram came from Hamilton?'

'Why, dearest, of course I don't believe it—it is some plot, and a very clumsy plot too; but we must take measures to counterplot it.'

'We must follow him to the ground.'

'Of course we must.'

'Shall I bring a revolver?'

'Oh, no; this will be only a case of one man. We shall simply appear at the right time.'

'You always know what to do,' Sarrasin exclaimed.

'Because I have a husband who has always taught me what to do,' she replied fervently.

Then the military butler was sent for a hansom cab, and Sarrasin and his wife were soon spinning on their way to St. James's Park. They had ample time to get there before the appointed moment, and nothing would be done until the appointed moment came. They drove to St. James's Park, and they dismissed their cab and made quickly for the bridge over the pond. It was not a moonlight night, but it was not clouded or hazy. It was what sailors would call a clear dark night. There was only one figure on the bridge, and that they felt sure was the figure of the Dictator. Mrs. Sarrasin had eyes like a lynx, and she could even make out his features.

'Is it he?' Sarrasin asked in a whisper. He had keen sight himself, but he preferred after long experience to trust to the eyes of his wife.

'It is he,' she answered; 'now we shall see.'

They sat quietly side by side on a bench under the dark trees a little away from the bridge. Nobody could easily see them—no one passing through the park or bound on any ordinary business would be likely to pay any attention to them even if he did see them. It was no part of Mrs. Sarrasin's purpose that they should be so placed as to be absolutely unnoticeable. If Mr. Hamilton should appear on the bridge she would then simply touch Sarrasin's arm, and they would quietly get up and go home together. But suppose—what she fully expected—that someone should appear who was not Hamilton, and should make for the bridge, and in passing should see her husband and her, and thereupon should slink off in another direction, then she should have seen the man, and could identify him among a thousand for ever after. In that event Sarrasin and she could then consider what was next to be done—whether to go at once to Ericson and tell him of what they had seen, or to wait there and keep watch until he had gone away, and then follow quietly in his track until they had seen him safely home. One thing Mrs. Sarrasin had made up her mind to: if there was any assassin plot at all, and she believed there was, it would be a safe and certain assassination tried when no watching eyes were near.

The Dictator meanwhile was leaning over the bridge and looking into the water. He was not thinking much about the water, or the sky, or the scene. He was not as yet thinking even of whether Hamilton was coming or not. He was, of course, a little puzzled by the terms of Hamilton's telegram, but there might be twenty reasons why Hamilton should wish to meet him before he reached home, and as Hamilton knew well his fancy for night lounges on that bridge, and as the park lay fairly well between Captain Sarrasin's house and the region of Paulo's Hotel, it seemed likely enough that Hamilton might select it as a convenient place of meeting. In any case, the Dictator was not by nature a suspicious man, and he was not scared by any thoughts of plots, and mystifications, and personal danger. He was a fatalist in a certain sense—not in the religious, but rather in the physical sense. He had a sort of wild-grown, general thought that man is sent into the world to do a certain work, and that while he is useful for that work he is not likely to be sent away from it. This was, perhaps, only an effect of temperament, although he found himself often trying to palm it off on himself as philosophy.

So he was not troubling himself much about the doubtful nature of the telegram. Hamilton would come and explain it, and if Hamilton did not come there would be some other explanation. He began to think about quite other things—he found himself thinking of the bright eyes and the friendly, frank, caressing ways of Helena Langley.

The Dictator began somehow to realise the fact that he had hitherto been leading a very lonely life. He was seldom alone—had seldom been alone for many years; but he began to understand the difference between not being alone and being lonely. During all his working career his life had wanted that companionship which alone is companionship to a man of sensitive nature. He had been too busy in his time in Gloria to think about all this. The days had gone by him with a rush. Each day brought its own sudden and vivid interest. Each day had its own decisions to be formed, its own plans to be made, its own difficulties to be encountered, its own struggles to be fought out. Ericson had delighted in it all, as a splendid exhilarating game. But now, in his enforced retirement and comparative restlessness, he looked back upon it and thought how lonely it all was. When each day closed he had no one to whom he could tell all his thoughts about what the day had done or what the next day was likely to bring forth. Someone has written about the 'passion of solitude'—not meaning the passion for solitude, the passion of the saint and the philosopher and the anchorite to be alone and to commune with outer nature or one's inner thought—no, no, but the passion of solitude—the raging passion born of solitude which craves and cries out in agony for the remedy of companionship—of some sweet and loved and trusted companionship—like the fond and futile longing of the childless mother for a child.

Eleven! The strokes of the hour rang out from Big Ben in the Clock Tower of Westminster Palace—the Parliament House of which Ericson, in his collegiate days, had once made it his ambition to be a member. The sound of the strokes recalled his mind for the moment to those early days, when the ambition for a seat in Parliament had been the very seamark of his utmost sail. How different his life had been from what his early ideas would have constructed it! And now—was it all over? Had his active career closed? Was he never again to have his chance in Gloria—in Gloria which he had almost begun to love as a bride? Or was he failing in his devotion to his South American Dulcinea del Toboso? Was the love of a mortal woman coming in to distract him from his love to that land with an immortal future?

It pleased him and tantalised him thus to question himself and find himself unable to give the answers. But he bore in mind the fact that Hamilton, the most punctual of living men, was not quite punctual this time. He turned his keen eyes upon the Clock Tower, and could see that during his purposeless reflections quite five minutes had passed. 'Something has happened,' he thought. 'Hamilton is certainly not coming. If he meant to keep the appointment he would have been here waiting for me five minutes before the time. Well, I'll give him five minutes more, and then I'll go.'

Several persons had passed him in the meanwhile. They were the ordinary passengers of the night time. The milliner's apprentice took leave of her lover and made for her home in one of the smaller streets about Broad Sanctuary. The artisan, who had been enjoying a drink in one of the public-houses near the Park, was starting for his home on the south side of the river. Occasionally some smart man came from St. James's Street to bury himself in his flat in Queen Anne's Mansions. A belated Tommy Atkins crossed the bridge to make for the St. James's Barracks. One or two of the daughters of folly went loungingly by—wandering, not altogether purposeless, among the open roads of the Park. None of all these had taken any notice of the Dictator.

Suddenly a step was heard near, just as the Dictator was turning to go, and even at that moment he noticed that several persons had quite lately passed, and that this was the first moment when the place was solitary, and a thought flashed through his mind that this might be Hamilton, who had waited for an opportunity. He turned round, and saw that a short and dapper-looking man had come up close beside him. The man leaned over the bridge.

'A fine night, governor,' he said.

'A very fine night,' Ericson said cheerily, and he was turning to go away.

'No offence in talking to you, I hope, governor?'

'Not the least in the world,' Ericson said. 'Why should there be? Why shouldn't you talk to me?'

'Some gents are so stuck-up, don't you know.'

'Well, I am not very much stuck-up,' Ericson said, much amused; 'but I am not quite certain whether I exactly know what stuck-up means.'

'Why, where do you come from?' the stranger asked in amazement.

'I have been out of England for many years. I have come from South America.'

'No—you don't mean that! Why, that beats all! Look here—I have a brother in South America.

'South America is a large place. Where is your brother?'

'Well, I've got a letter from him here. I wonder if you could tell me the name of the place. I can't make it out myself.'

'I dare say I can,' said Ericson carelessly. 'Come under this gas-lamp and let me see your letter.' The man fumbled in his pocket and drew out a folded letter. He had something else in his hand, as the keen eyes of the watching Mrs. Sarrasin could very well see.

'Another second,' she whispered to her husband.

The Dictator took the letter good-naturedly, and began to open it under the light of the lamp which hung over the bridge. The stranger was standing just behind him. The place was otherwise deserted.

'Now,' Mrs. Sarrasin whispered.

Then Captain Sarrasin strode forward and seized the stranger by the shoulder with one hand, and by his right arm with another.

'What are you a-doin' of?' the stranger asked angrily.

'Well, I want to know who you are in the first place. I beg your Excellency's pardon for intruding on you, but my wife and I happened to be here, and we just came up as this person was talking to you, and we want to know who he is.'

'Captain Sarrasin! Mrs. Sarrasin! Where have you turned up from? Tell me—have you really been benignly shadowing me all this way?' Ericson asked with a smile. 'There isn't the slightest danger, I can assure you. This man merely asked me a civil question.'

The civil man, meanwhile, was wrestling and wriggling under Sarrasin's grip. He was wrestling and wriggling all in vain.

'You let me go,' the man exclaimed, in a tone of righteous indignation. 'You hain't nothin' to do with me.'

'I must first see what you have got there in your hand,' Sarrasin said. 'See—there it is! Look here, your Excellency—look at that knife!'

Sarrasin took from the man's hand a short, one-bladed, delicately-shaped, and terrible knife. It might be trusted to pierce its way at a single touch, not to say stroke, into the heart of any victim.

'That's the knife I use at my trade,' the man exclaimed indignantly. 'I am a ladies' slipper-maker, and that's the knife I use for cutting into the leathers, because it cuts clean, don't you see, and makes no waste. Lord bless you, governor, what a notion you have got into your 'ead! I shall amuse my old woman when I tell her.'

'Why did you have the knife in your hand?' Sarrasin sternly asked.

'Took it out, governor, jest by chance when I was taking put the letter.'

'You don't carry a knife like that open in your pocket,' Sarrasin said sternly. 'It closes up, I suppose, or else you have a sheath for it. Oh, yes, I see the spring—it closes this way and I think I have seen this pretty sort of weapon before. Well, look here, you don't carry that sort of toy open in your pocket, you know. How did it come open?'

'Blest if I know, governor—you are all a-puzzlin' of me.'

'Show me the knife,' the Dictator said, taking for the first time some genuine interest in the discussion.

'Look at it,' Sarrasin said. 'Don't give it back to him.'

The Dictator took the knife in his hand, and, touching the spring with the manner of one who understood it, closed and opened the weapon several times.

'I know the knife very well,' he said; 'it has been brought into South America a good deal, but I believe it is Sicilian to begin with. Look here, my man, you say you are a ladies' slipper-maker?'

'Of course I am. Ain't I told you so?'

'Whom do you work for?'

'Works for myself, governor.'

'Where is your shop?'

'Down in the East End, don't you know?'

'I want to talk to you about the East End,' Mrs. Sarrasin struck in with her musical, emphatic voice. 'Tell me exactly where you live.'

'Out Whitechapel way.'

'But please tell me the exact place. I happen to know Whitechapel pretty well.'

'Off Whitechapel Road there.'

'Where?'

He made a sulky effort to evade. Mrs. Sarrasin was not to be so easily evaded.

'Tell me,' she said, 'the name of the street you live in, and the name of any streets near to it, and how they lie with regard to each other. Come, don't think about it, but tell me; you must know where you live and work.'

'I don't want to have you puzzlin' and worritin' me.'

'Can you tell me where this street is'—she named a street—'or this court, or that hospital, or the nearest omnibus stand to the hospital?'

No, he didn't remember any of these places; he had enough to do mindin' of his work.

'This man doesn't live in Whitechapel,' Mrs. Sarrasin said composedly. She put on no air of triumph—she never put on any airs of triumph or indeed airs of any kind.

'Well, there ain't no crime in giving a wrong address,' the man said. 'What business have you with where I live? You don't pay for my lodging, anyhow.'

'Where were you born?' Mrs. Sarrasin asked.

'Why, in London, to be sure.'

'In the East End?'

'So I'm told—I don't myself remember.'

'Well, look here, will you just say a few words after me?'

'I ain't got no pertickler objection.'

The cross-examination now had passed wholly into the hands of Mrs. Sarrasin. Captain Sarrasin looked on with wonder and delight—Ericson was really interested and amused.

'Say these words.' She repeated slowly, and giving him plenty of time to get the words into his ears and his mind, a number of phrases in which the peculiar accent and pronunciation of the born Whitechapel man were certain to come out. Ericson, of course, comprehended the meaning of the whole performance. The East End man hesitated.

'I ain't here for playing tricks,' he mumbled. 'I want to be getting home to my old woman.'

'Look here,' Sarrasin said, angrily interfering. 'You just do as you are told, or I'll whistle for a policeman and give you into custody, and then everything about you will come out—or, by Jove, I'll take you up and drop you into that pond as if you were a blind kitten! Answer the lady at once, you confounded scoundrel!'

The small eyes of the Whitechapel man flashed fire for an instant—a fire that certainly is not common to Cockney eyes—and he made a sudden grasp at his pocket.

'See there!' Sarrasin exclaimed. 'The ladies' slipper-maker is grasping for his knife, and forgets that we have got it in our possession.'

'This is certainly becoming interesting,' Ericson said. 'It is much more interesting than most plays that I have lately seen. Now, then, recite after the lady, or confess thyself.'

It had not escaped the notice of the Dictator that when once or twice some wayfarer passed along the bridge or on one of the near-lying paths the maker of ladies' slippers did not seem in the least anxious to attract attention. He appeared, in fact, to be the one of the whole party who was most eager to withdraw himself from the importunate notice of the casual passer-by. A man conscious of no wrong done or planned by him, and unjustly bullied and badgered by three total strangers, would most assuredly have leaped at the chance of appealing to the consideration and the help of the passing citizen.

Mrs. Sarrasin remorselessly repeated her test words, and the man repeated them after her.

'That will do,' she said contemptuously; 'the man was never born in Whitechapel—his East End accent is mere gotten up stage-play.' Then she spoke some rapid words to her husband in a patois which Ericson did not understand. The Whitechapel man's eyes flashed fire again.

'You see,' she said to the Dictator, 'he understands me! I have been saying in Sicilian patois that he is a hired assassin born in England of Sicilian parents, and brought up, probably, near Snow Hill—and this Whitechapel gentleman understood every word I said! If you give him the alternative of going to the nearest police-station and being charged, or of talking Sicilian patois with me, you will see that he prefers the alternative of a conversation in Sicilian patois with me.

'I propose that we let him go,' the Dictator said decisively. 'We have no evidence against him, except that he carries a peculiar knife, and that he is, as you say, of Sicilian parents.'

'Your Excellency yourself gave me the hint I acted on,' Mrs. Sarrasin said deferentially, 'when you made the remark that the knife was Sicilian. I spoke on mere guess-work, acting on that hint.'

'And you were right, as you always are,' Captain Sarrasin struck in with admiring eyes fixed on his wife.

'Well, he is a poor creature, anyhow,' the Dictator said—and he spoke now to his friends in Spanish—'and not much up to his work. If he were worth anything in his own line of business he might have finished the job with that knife instead of stopping to open a conversation with me.'

'But he has been set on by someone to do this job,' Sarrasin said, 'and we might get to know who is the someone that set him on.'

'We shall not know from him,' the Dictator replied; 'he probably does not know who are the real movers. No; if there is anything serious to come it will come from better hands than his. No, my dear and kind friends, we can't get any further with him. Let the creature go. Let him tell his employers, whoever they are, that I don't scare, as the Americans say, worth a cent. If they have any real assassins to send on, let them come; this fellow won't do; and I can't have paragraphs in the papers to say that I took any serious alarm from a creature who, with such a knife in his hand, could not, without a moment's parley, make it do his work.'

'The man is a hired assassin,' Sarrasin declared.

'Very likely,' the Dictator replied calmly; 'but we can't convict him of it, and we had better let him go his blundering way.' The Dictator had meanwhile been riveting his eyes on the face of the captive—if we may call him so—anxious to find out from his expression whether he understood Spanish. If he seemed to understand Spanish then the affair would be a little more serious. It might lead to the impression that he was really mixed up in South American affairs, and that he fancied he had partisan wrongs to avenge. But the man's face remained imperturbable. He evidently understood nothing. It was not even, the Dictator felt certain, that he had been put on his guard by his former lapse into unlucky consciousness when Mrs. Sarrasin tried him and trapped him with the Sicilian patois. No, there was a look of dull curiosity on his face, and that was all.

'We'll keep the knife?' Sarrasin asked.

'Yes; I think you had better keep the knife. It may possibly come in as a piece de justification one of these days. What's the value of your knife?' he asked in English, suddenly turning on the captive with a stern voice and manner that awed the creature.

'It's well worth a quid, governor.'

'Yes; I should think it was. There's a quid and a half for you, and go your ways. We have agreed—my friends and I—to let you off this time, although we have every reason to believe that you meant murder.'

'Oh, governor!'

'If you try it again,' the Dictator said, 'you will forfeit your life whether you succeed or fail. Now get away—and set us free from your presence.'

The man ran along the road leading eastward—ran with the speed of some hunted animal, the path re-echoing to the sound of his flying feet. Ericson broke into a laugh.

'You have in all probability saved my life,' the Dictator said. 'You two——'

'All her doing,' Sarrasin interposed.

'I think I understand it all,' Ericson went on. 'I have no doubt this was meant as an attempt. But it was a very bungling first attempt. The planners, whoever they were, were anxious first of all to keep themselves as far as possible out of responsibility and suspicion, and instead of hiring a South American bravo, and so in a manner bringing it home to themselves, they merely picked up and paid an ordinary Sicilian stabber who had no heart in the matter, who probably never heard of me before in all his life, and had no partisan hatred to drive him on. So he dallied, and bungled; and then you two intervened, and his game was hopeless. He'll not try it again, you may be sure.'

'No, he probably has had enough of it,' Captain Sarrasin said; 'and of course he has got his pay beforehand. But someone else will.'

'Very likely,' the Dictator said carelessly. 'They will manage it on a better plan next time.'

'We must have better plans, too,' Sarrasin said warmly.

'How can we? The only wise thing in such affairs is to take the ordinary and reasonable precautions that any sane man takes who has serious business to do in life, and then not to trouble oneself any further. Anyhow, I owe to you both, dear friends,' and the Dictator took a hand of each in one of his, 'a deep debt of gratitude. And now I propose that we consider the whole incident as vide, and that we go forthwith to Paulo's and have a pleasant supper there and summon up the boy Hamilton, even should he be in bed, and ask him how he came to send out telegrams for belated meetings in St. James's Park, and have a good time to repay us for our loss of an hour and the absurdity of our adventure. Come, Mrs. Sarrasin, you will not refuse my invitation?'

'Excellency, certainly not.'

'You can stay in the hotel, dear,' Sarrasin suggested.

'Yes, I should like that best,' she said.

'They won't expect you at home?' the Dictator asked.

'They never expect us,' Mrs. Sarrasin answered with her usual sweet gravity. 'When we are coming we let them know—if we do not we are never to be expected. My husband could not manage his affairs at all if we were to have to look out for being expected.'

'You know how to live your life, Mrs. Sarrasin,' the Dictator said, much interested.

'I have tried to learn the art,' she said modestly.

'It is a useful branch of knowledge,' Ericson answered, 'and one of the least cultivated by men or women, I think.'

They were moving along at this time. They crossed the bridge and passed by Marlborough House, and so got into Pall Mall.

'How shall we go?' the Dictator asked, glancing at the passing cabs, some flying, some crawling.

'Four-wheeler?' Sarrasin suggested tentatively.

'No; I don't seem to be in humour for anything slow and creeping,' the Dictator said gaily. 'I feel full of animal spirits, somehow. Perhaps it is the getting out of danger, although really I don't think there was much'—and then he stopped, for he suddenly reflected that it must seem rather ungracious to suggest that there was not much danger to a pair of people who had come all the way from Clapham Common to look after his life. 'There was not much craft,' he went on to say, 'displayed in that first attempt. You will have to look after me pretty closely in the future. No; I must spin in a hansom—it is the one thing I specially love in London, its hansom. Here, we'll have two hansoms, and I'll take charge of Mrs. Sarrasin, and you'll follow us, or, at least, you'll find your way the best you can, Captain Sarrasin—and let us see who gets there first.'



CHAPTER XV

'IF I WERE TO ASK YOU?'

It is needless to say that Hamilton had never sent any telegram asking the Dictator to meet him on the bridge in St. James's Park or anywhere else at eleven o'clock at night. Hamilton at first was disposed to find fault with the letting loose of the supposed assassin, and was at all events much in favour of giving information at Scotland Yard and putting the police authorities on the look-out for some plot. But the opinion of the Dictator was clear and fixed, and Hamilton naturally yielded to it. Ericson was quite prepared to believe that some plot was expanding, but he was convinced that it would be better to allow it to expand. The one great thing was to find out who were the movers in the plot. If the London Sicilian really were a hired assassin, it was clear that he was thrown out merely as a skirmisher in the hope that he might succeed in doing the work at once, and the secure conviction that if he failed he could be abandoned to his fate. It was the crude form of an attempt at political assassination. A wild outcry on the part of the Dictator's friends would, he felt convinced, have no better effect than to put his enemies prematurely on their guard, and inspire them to plan something very subtle and dangerous. Or if, then, their hate did not take so serious a form, the Dictator reasoned that they were not particularly dangerous. So he insisted on lying low, and quietly seeing what would come of it. He was not now disposed to underrate the danger, but he felt convinced that the worst possible course for him would be to proclaim the danger too soon.

Therefore, Ericson insisted that the story of the bridge and the Sicilian knife must be kept an absolute secret for the present at least, and the help of Scotland Yard must not be invoked. Of course, it was clear even to Hamilton that there was no evidence against the supposed Sicilian which would warrant any magistrate in committing him for trial on a charge of attempted assassination. There was conjectural probability enough; but men are not sent for trial in this country on charges of conjectural probability. The fact of the false telegram having been sent was the only thing which made it clear that behind the Sicilian there were conspirators of a more educated and formidable character. The Sicilian never could have sent that telegram; would not be likely to know anything about Hamilton. Hamilton in the end became satisfied that the Dictator was right, and that it would be better to keep a keen look-out and let the plot develop itself. The most absolute reliance could be put on the silence of the Sarrasins; and better look-out could hardly be kept than the look-out of that brave and quick-witted pair of watchers. Therefore Ericson told Hamilton he meant to sleep in spite of thunder.

The very day after the scene on the bridge the Dictator got an imperious little note from Helena asking him to come to see her at once, as she had something to say to him. He had been thinking of her—he had been occupying himself in an odd sort of way with the conviction, the memory, that if the supposed assassin had only been equal to his work, the last thought on earth of the Dictator would have been given to Helena Langley. It did not occur to the Dictator, in his quiet, unegotistic nature, to think of what Helena Langley would have given to know that her name in such a crisis would have been on his dying lips.

Ericson himself did not think of the matter in that sentimental and impassioned way. He was only studying in his mind the curious fact that he certainly was thinking about Helena Langley as he stood on the bridge and looked on the water; and that, if the knife of the ladies' slipper-maker had done its business promptly, the last thought in his mind, the last feeling in his heart, would have been given not to Gloria but to Helena Langley.

He was welcomed and ushered by To-to. When the footman had announced him, Helena sprang up from her sofa and ran to meet him.

'I sent for you,' she said, almost breathlessly, 'because I have a favour to ask of you! Will you promise me, as all gallants did in the old days—will you promise me before I ask it, that you will grant it?'

'The knights in the old days had wonderful auxiliaries. They had magical spells, and sorceresses, and wizards—and we have only our poor selves. Suppose I were not able to grant the favour you ask of me?'

'Oh, but, if that were so, I never should ask it. It is entirely and absolutely in your power to say yes or no.'

'To say—and then to do.'

'Yes, of course—to say and then to do.'

'Well, then, of course,' he said, with a smile, 'I shall say yes.'

'Thank you,' she replied fervently; 'it's only this—that you will take some care of yourself—take,' and she hesitated, and almost shuddered, 'some care of your—life.'

For a moment he thought that she had heard of the adventure in St. James's Park, and he was displeased.

'Is my life threatened?' he asked.

'My father thinks it is. He has had some information. There are people in Gloria who hate you—bad and corrupt and wicked people. My father thinks you ought to take some care of yourself, for the sake of the cause that is so dear to you, and for the sake of some friends who care for you, and who, I hope, are dear to you too.' Her voice trembled, but she bore up splendidly.

'I love my friends,' the Dictator said quietly, 'and I would do much for their sake—or merely to please them. But tell me, what can I do?'

'Be on the look-out for enemies, don't go about alone—at all events at night—don't go about unarmed. My father is sure attempts will be made.'

These words were a relief to Ericson. They showed at least that she did not suppose any attempt had yet been, made. This was satisfactory. The secret to which he attached so much importance had been kept.

'It is of no use,' the Dictator said. 'In this sort of business a man has got to take his life in his hand. Precautions are pretty well useless. In nine cases out of ten the assassin—I mean the fellow who wants to be an assassin and tries to be an assassin—is a mere mountebank, who might be safely allowed to shoot at you or stab at you as long as he likes and no harm done. Why? Because the creature is nervous, and afraid to risk his own life. Get the man who wants to kill you, and does not care about his own life—is willing and ready to die the instant after he has killed you—and from a man like that you can't preserve your life.'

Helena shuddered. 'It is terrible,' she said.

'Dear Miss Langley, it is not more terrible than a score of chances in life which young ladies run without the slightest sense of alarm. Why you, in your working among the poor, run the danger of scarlet fever and small-pox every other day in your life, and you never think about it. How many public men have died by the assassin's hand in my days? Abraham Lincoln, Marshal Prim, President Garfield, Lord Frederick Cavendish—two or three more; and how many young ladies have died of scarlet fever?'

'But one can't take any precautions against scarlet fever—except to keep away from where it may be, and not to do what one must feel to be a duty.'

'Exactly,' he said eagerly; 'there is where it is.'

'You can't,' she urged, 'have police protection against typhus or small-pox.'

'Nor against assassination,' he said gravely. 'At least, not against the only sort of assassins who are in the least degree dangerous. I want you to understand this quite clearly,' he said, turning to her suddenly with an earnestness which had something tender in it. 'I want you to know that I am not rash or foolhardy or careless about my own life. I have only too much reason for wanting to live—aye, even for clinging to life! But, as a matter of calculation, there is no precaution to be taken in such a case which can be of the slightest value as a genuine protection. An enemy determined enough will get at you in your bedroom as you sleep some night—you can't have a cordon of police around your door. Even if you did have a police cordon round you when you took your walks abroad, it wouldn't be of the slightest use against the bullet of the assassin firing from the garret window.'

'This is appalling,' Helena said, turning pale. 'I now understand why some women have such a horror of anything like political strife. I wonder if I should lose courage if someone in whom I was interested were in serious danger?'

'You would never lose your courage,' the Dictator said firmly. 'You would fear nothing so much as that those you cared for should not prove themselves equal to the duty imposed upon them.'

'I used to think so once,' she said. 'I begin to be afraid about myself now.'

'Well, in this case,' he interposed quickly, 'there does not seem to be any real apprehension of danger. I am afraid,' he added, with a certain bitterness, 'my enemies in Gloria do not regard me as so very formidable a personage as to make it worth their while to pay for the cost of my assassination. I don't fancy they are looking out for my speedy return to Gloria.'

'My father's news is different. He hears that your party is growing in Gloria every day, and that the people in power are making themselves every day more and more odious to the country.'

'That they are likely enough to do,' he said, with a bright look coming into his eyes, 'and that is one reason why I am quite determined not to precipitate matters. We can't afford to have revolution after revolution in a poor and struggling place like Gloria, and so I want these people to give the full measure of their incapacity and their baseness so that when they fall they may fall like Lucifer! Hamilton would be rather for rushing things—I am not.'

'Do you keep in touch with Gloria?' Helena asked almost timidly. She had lately grown rather shy of asking him questions on political matters, or of seeming to assume any right to be in his confidence. All the impulsive courage which she used to have in the days when their acquaintanceship was but new and slight seemed to have deserted her now that they were such close and recognised friends, and that random report occasionally gave them out as engaged lovers.

'Oh, yes,' he answered; 'I thought you knew—I fancied I had told you. I have constant information from friends on whom I can absolutely rely—in Gloria.'

'Do they know what your enemies are doing?'

'Yes, I should think they would get to know,' he said with a smile, 'as far as anything can be known.'

'Would they be likely to know,' she asked again in a timid tone, 'if any plot were being got up against you?'

'Any plot for my murder?'

'Yes!' Her voice sank to a whisper—she hardly dared to put the possibility into words. The fear which we allow to occupy our thoughts seems sometimes too fearful to be put into words. It appears as if by spoken utterance we conjure up the danger.

'Some hint of the kind might be got,' he said hesitatingly. 'Our enemies are very crafty, but these things often leak out. Someone loses courage and asks for advice—or confides to his wife, and she takes fright and goes for counsel to somebody else. Then two words of a telegram across the ocean would put me on my guard.'

'If you should get such a message, will you—tell me?'

'Oh, yes, certainly,' he said carelessly, 'I can promise you that.'

'And will you promise me one thing more—will you promise to be careful?'

'What is being careful? How can one take care, not knowing where or whence the danger threatens?'

'But you need not go out alone, at night.'

'You have no idea how great a delight it is for me to go about London at night. Then I am quite free—of politicians, interviewers, gossiping people, society ladies, and all the rest. I am master of myself, and I am myself again.'

'Still, if your friends ask you——'

'Some of my friends have asked me.'

'And you did not comply?'

'No; I did not think there was any necessity for complying.'

'But if I were to ask you?' She laid her hand gently, lightly, timidly, on his.

'Ah, well, if you were to ask me, that would be quite a different thing.'

'Then I do ask you,' she exclaimed, almost joyously.

He smiled a bright, half-sad smile upon the kindly, eager girl.

'Well, I promise not to go out alone at night in London until you release me from my vow. It is not much to do this to please you, Miss Langley—you have been so kind to me. I am really glad to have it in my power to do anything to please you.'

'You have pleased me much, yet I feel penitent too.'

'Penitent for what?'

'For having deprived you of these lonely midnight walks which you seem to love so much.'

'I shall love still more the thought of giving anything up to please you.'

'Thank you,' she said gravely—and that was all she said. She began to be afraid that she had shown her hand too much. She began to wonder what he was thinking of her—whether he thought her too free spoken—too forward—whether he had any suspicion of her feelings towards him. His manner, too, had always been friendly, gentle, tender even; but it was the manner of a man who apparently considered all suspicion of love-making to be wholly out of the question. This very fact had made her incautious, she thought. If any serious personal danger ever should threaten him, how should she be able to keep her real feelings a secret from him? Were they, she asked herself in pain and with flushing face, a secret even now? After to-day could he fail to know—could he at all events fail to guess?

Did the Dictator know—did he guess—that the girl was in love with him?

The Dictator did not know and did not guess. The frankness of her manners had completely led him astray. The way in which she rendered him open homage deceived him wholly as to her feelings. He knew that she liked his companionship—of that he could have no doubt—he knew that she was by nature a hero-worshipper and that he was just now her hero. But he never for a moment imagined that the girl was in love with him. After a little while he would go away—to Gloria, most likely—and she would soon find some other hero, and one day he would read in the papers that the daughter of Sir Rupert Langley was married. Then he would write her a letter of congratulation, and in due course he would receive from her a friendly answer—and there an end.

Perhaps just now he was more concerned about his own feelings than about hers—much more, indeed, because he had not the remotest suspicion that her feelings were in any wise disturbed. But his own? He began to think it time that he should grow acquainted with his heart, and search what stirred it so. He could not conceal from himself the fact that he was growing more and more attached to the companionship of this beautiful, clever, and romantic girl. He found that she disputed Gloria in his mind. He found that, mingling imperceptibly with his hope of a triumphant return to Gloria, was the thought that she would feel the triumph too, or the painful thought that if it came she would not be near him to hear the story. He found that one of the delights of his lonely midnight walks was the quiet thought of her. It used to be a gladness to him to recall, in those moments of solitude, some word that she had spoken—some kindly touch of her hand.

He began to grow afraid of his position and his feelings. What had he to do with falling in love? That was no part of the work of his life. What could it be to him but a misfortune if he were to fall in love with this girl who was so much younger than he? Supposing it possible that a girl of that age could love him, what had he to offer her? A share in a career that might well prove desperate—a career to be brought to a sudden and swift close, very probably by his own death at the hands of his successful enemies in Gloria! Think of the bright home in which he found that girl—of the tender, almost passionate, love she bore to her father, and which her father returned with such love for her—think of the brilliant future that seemed to await her, and then think of the possibility of her ever being prevailed upon to share his dark and doubtful fortunes. The Dictator was not a rich man. Much of what he once had was flung away—or at all events given away—in his efforts to set up reform and constitutionalism in Gloria. The plain truth of the position was that even if Helena Langley were at all likely to fall in love with him it would be his clear duty, as a man of honour and one who wished her well, to discourage any such feeling and to keep away from her. But the Dictator honestly believed that he was entitled to put any such thought as that out of his mind. The very frankness—the childlike frankness—with which she had approached him made it clear that she had no thought of any love-making being possible between them. 'She thinks of me as a man almost old enough to be her father,' he said to himself. So the Dictator reconciled his conscience, and still kept on seeing her.



CHAPTER XVI

THE CHILDREN OF GRIEVANCE

The Dictator and Hamilton stood in Ericson's study, waiting to receive a deputation. The Dictator had agreed to receive this deputation from an organisation of working men. The deputation desired to complain of the long hours of work and the small rate of pay from which English artisans in many branches of labour had to suffer. Why they had sought to see him he could not very well tell—and certainly if it had been left to Hamilton, whose mind was set on sparing the Dictator all avoidable trouble, and who, moreover, had in his heart of hearts no great belief in remedy by working-men's deputation, the poor men would probably not have been accorded the favour of an interview. But the Dictator insisted on receiving them, and they came; trooped into the room awkwardly; at first seemed slow of speech, and soon talked a great deal. He listened to all they had to say, and put questions and received answers, and certainly impressed the deputation with the conviction that if his Excellency the ex-Dictator of Gloria could not do anything very much for them, his heart at least was in their cause. He had an idea in his mind of something he could do to help the over-oppressed English working man—and that was the reason why he had consented to receive the deputation.

The spokesman of the deputation was a gaunt and haggard-looking man. The dirt seemed ingrained in him—in his hands, his eyebrows, his temples, under his hair, up to his very eyes. He told a pitiful story of long work and short pay—of hungry children and an over-tasked wife. He told, in fact, the story familiar to all of us—the 'chestnut' of the newspapers—the story which the busy man of ordinary society is not expected to trouble himself by reading any more—supposing he ever had read it at all.

The Dictator, however, was not an ordinary society man, and he had been a long time away from England, and had not had his attention turned to these social problems of Great Britain. He was therefore deeply interested in the whole business, and he asked a number of questions, and got shrewd, keen answers sometimes, and very rambling answers on other occasions. The deputation was like all other deputations with a grievance. There was the fanatic burning to a white heat, with the inward conviction of wrong done, not accidentally, but deliberately, to him and to his class. There was the prosaic, didactic, reasoning man, who wanted to talk the whole matter out himself, and to put everybody's arguments to the test, and to prove that all were wrong and weak and fallible and unpractical save himself alone. There was the fervid man, who always wanted to dash into the middle of every other man's speech. There was the practical man, who came with papers of figures and desired to make it all a question of statistics. There was the 'crank,' who disagreed with everything that everybody else said or suggested or could possibly have said or suggested on that or any other subject. The first trouble of the Dictator was to get at any commonly admitted appreciation of facts. More than once—many times indeed—he had to interpose and explain that he personally knew nothing of the subjects they were discussing; that he only sought for information; and that he begged them if they could to agree among themselves as to the actual realities which they wished to bring under his notice. Even when he had thus adjured them it was not easy for him to get them to be all in a story. Poor fellows! each one of them had his own peculiar views and his own peculiar troubles too closely pressing on his brain. The Dictator was never impatient—but he kept asking himself the question: 'Suppose I had the power to legislate, and were now called upon by these men and in their own interests to legislate, what on their own showing should I be able to do?'

More than once, too, he put to them that question. 'Admitting your grievances—admitting the justice, the reason, the practical good sense of your demands, what can I do? Why do you appeal to me? I am no legislator. I am a proscribed and banished man from a country which until lately most of you had never heard of. What would you have of me?'

The spokesman of the deputation could only answer that they had heard of him as of one who had risen to supreme position in a great far-off country, and who had always concerned himself deeply with the interest of the working classes.

'Will that,' he asked, 'get me one moment's audience from an English official department?'

No, they did not suppose it would; they shook their heads. They could not help him to learn how he was to help them.

The day was cold and dreary. No matter though the season was still supposed to be far remote from winter, yet the look of the skies was cruelly depressing, and the atmosphere was loaded with a misty chill. Ericson's heart was profoundly touched. He saw in his mind's eye a country glowing with soft sunshine—a country where even winter came caressingly on the people living there; a country with vast and almost boundless spaces for cultivation; a country watered with noble rivers and streams; a country to be renowned in history as the breeder of horses and cattle and the grower of grain; a country well qualified to rear and feed and bring up in sunny comfort more than the whole mass of the hopeless toilers on the chill English fields and in the sooty English cities. His mind was with the country with which he had identified his career—which only wanted good strong hands to convert her into a country of practical prosperity—which only needed brains to open for her a history that should be remembered in all far-stretching time. He now excused himself for what had at one moment seemed his weakness in consenting to receive a deputation for which he could do nothing. He found that he had something to say to them after all.

The Dictator had a sweet, strong, melodious voice. When he had heard them all most patiently out, he used his voice and said what he had to say. He told them that he had directly no right to receive them at all, for, as far as regards this country, there was absolutely nothing he could do for them. He was not an official, not a member of Parliament, not a person claiming the slightest influence in English public life. Nor even in the country of his adoption did he reckon for much just now. He was, as they all knew, an exile; if he were to return to that country now, his life would, in all probability, be forfeit. Yet, in God's good pleasure, he might, after all, get back some time, and, if that should be, then he would think of his poor countrymen, in England. Gloria was a great country, and could find homes for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Englishmen. There—he had no scheme, had never thought of the matter until quite lately—until they had asked him to receive their deputation. He had nothing more to say and nothing more to ask. He was ashamed to have brought them to listen to a reply of so little worth in any sense; but that was all that he could tell them, and if ever again he was in a position to do anything, then he could only say that he hoped to be reminded of his promise.

The deputation went away not only contented but enthusiastic. They quite understood that their immediate cause was not advanced and could not be advanced by anything the Dictator could possibly have to say. But they had been impressed by his sincerity and by his sympathy. They had been deputed to wait on many a public official, many a head of a department, many a Secretary of State, many an Under-Secretary. They were familiar with the stereotyped official answers, the answers that assured them that the case should have consideration, and that if anything could be done—well, then, perhaps, something would be done. Possibly no other answer could have been given. The answer of the unofficial and irresponsible Dictator promised absolutely nothing; but it had the musical ring of sincerity and of sympathy about it, and the men grasped strongly his strong hand, and went away glad that they had seen him.

The Dictator did not usually receive deputations. But he had a great many requests from deputations that they might be allowed to wait on him and express their views to him. He was amazed sometimes to find what an important man he was in the estimation of various great organisations. Ho was assured by the committee of the Universal Arbitration Society that, if he would only appear on their platform and deliver a speech, the cause of universal arbitration would be secured, and public war would go out of fashion in the world as completely as the private duel has gone out of fashion in England. Of course, he was politely pressed to receive a deputation on behalf of several societies interested on one side or the other of the great question of Woman's Suffrage. The teetotallers and Local Optionists of various forms solicited the favour of a talk with him. The trade associations and the licensed victuallers eagerly desired to get at his views. The letters he received on the subject of the hours of labour interested him a great deal, and he tried to grapple with their difficulties, but soon found he could make little of them. By the strenuous advice of Hamilton he was induced to keep out of these complex English questions altogether. Ericson yielded, knowing that Hamilton was advising him for the best; but he had a good deal of the Don Quixote in his nature; and having now a sort of enforced idleness put upon him, he felt a secret yearning for some enterprise to set the world right in other directions than that of Gloria.