Flossie, who had been hovering impatient, broke in. “Have you heard from Arthur?” he asked, suddenly turning to her.!

“She wouldn’t mind if she did,” explained Joan. “And you know what she’s like! How can one think what one’s saying with that silly, goggle-eyed face in front of one always.” But it was her Gethsemane: the best that Fate had been able to do for her. It was here that her choice would be made. She felt that.

“The old pulpit became an evil, the moment it obtained unlimited power,” answered Mrs. Denton. “It originated persecution and inflamed men’s passions against one another. It, too, preached war for its own ends, taught superstition, and punished thought as a crime. The Press of to-day is stepping into the shoes of the medieval priest. It aims at establishing the worst kind of tyranny: the tyranny over men’s minds. They pretend to fight among themselves, but it’s rapidly becoming a close corporation. The Institute of Journalists will soon be followed by the union of Newspaper Proprietors and the few independent journals will be squeezed out. Already we have German shareholders on English papers; and English capital is interested in the St. Petersburg Press. It will one day have its International Pope and its school of cosmopolitan cardinals.” Joan was still looking out of the window. She didn’t quite know what to say. The woman’s altered appearance had shocked her. Suddenly she felt a touch upon her hand. She turned abruptly and walked rapidly away. Joan moved instinctively in the opposite direction, and after a few minutes found herself in a broad well-lighted thoroughfare. A newsboy was shouting his wares.