The twilight was fading as she left the office. She turned northward, choosing a broad, ill-lighted road. It did not matter which way she took. She wanted to think; or, rather, to dream. She wondered later why she had not been surprised to see him. But at the time it seemed to be in the order of things that she should look up and find him there.!

Joan laughed. “Perhaps I shall some day,” she answered. A robin broke into a song of triumph. He had seen the sad-faced ghosts steal silently away.

There was a distinct challenge in Flossie’s eye as she asked the question. Joan felt herself flush, and thought a moment. It made her mad, the look of delight that came into his eyes. She could have boxed his ears. Hadn’t he anything else to do but hang about the streets. They met more often from that day, for Joan was frankly using her two columns in the Sunday Post to propagate his aims. Carleton, to her surprise, made no objection. Nor did he seek to learn the result of his ultimatum. It looked, they thought, as if he had assumed acceptance; and was willing for Phillips to choose his own occasion. Meanwhile replies to her articles reached Joan in weekly increasing numbers. There seemed to be a wind arising, blowing towards Protection. Farm labourers, especially, appeared to be enthusiastic for its coming. From their ill-spelt, smeared epistles, one gathered that, after years of doubt and hesitation, they had—however reluctantly—arrived at the conclusion that without it there could be no hope for them. Factory workers, miners, engineers—more fluent, less apologetic—wrote as strong supporters of Phillips’s scheme; but saw clearly how upon Protection its success depended. Shopmen, clerks—only occasionally ungrammatical—felt sure that Robert Phillips, the tried friend of the poor, would insist upon the boon of Protection being no longer held back from the people. Wives and mothers claimed it as their children’s birthright. Similar views got themselves at the same time, into the correspondence columns of Carleton’s other numerous papers. Evidently Democracy had been throbbing with a passion for Protection hitherto unknown, even to itself.