“I mean,” she continued, “to what fundamental rule of conduct do you attribute your success?” “I think God must want you very badly,” she said, “or He wouldn’t have laid so heavy a cross upon you. You will come?”!

She would build again the Forum. The people’s business should no longer be settled for them behind lackey-guarded doors. The good of the farm labourer should be determined not exclusively by the squire and his relations. The man with the hoe, the man with the bent back and the patient ox-like eyes: he, too, should be invited to the Council board. Middle-class domestic problems should be solved not solely by fine gentlemen from Oxford; the wife of the little clerk should be allowed her say. War or peace, it should no longer be regarded as a question concerning only the aged rich. The common people—the cannon fodder, the men who would die, and the women who would weep: they should be given something more than the privilege of either cheering platform patriots or being summoned for interrupting public meetings. One morning Joan received a letter from Phillips, marked immediate. He informed her that his brain was becoming addled. He intended that afternoon to give it a draught of fresh air. He would be at the Robin Hood gate in Richmond Park at three o’clock. Perhaps the gods would be good to him. He would wait there for half an hour to give them a chance, anyway.

CHAPTER II “But he won’t be able to do his work if you keep away and never come back to him,” she persisted. “Oh, I know it. It all depends upon you. He wants you.” She forced him gently back into his chair, and seated herself upon the floor between his knees. “What were you thinking of when I came in?” she asked. “You weren’t asleep, were you?”