Mrs. Phillips signed amid splutterings and blots. Joan added her signature as witness. “I’ll try,” he said.!

“I’m so afraid,” she answered gravely. “That I shall come to love you too much: the home, the children and you. I shall have none left over.” The others rose and moved away. Hilda came and stood before Joan with her hands behind her.

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. She flung herself from the bed and drew the blind. A chill, grey light penetrated the room. It was a little before five. She would go round to Phillips, wake him up. He must be told. Joan undertook to sound Greyson. She was sure Greyson would support him, in his balanced, gentlemanly way, that could nevertheless be quite deadly.