Folk’s words came back to her: “And poor Jack Allway. Tell him I thank him for all those years of love and gentleness.” She gave him the message. It seemed to her that it was she that they were laughing at, pointing her out to one another, jeering at her, reviling her, threatening her.!

He did not answer for some time. She had begun to wonder if he had heard. “I wish I’d taken more interest in politics when I was young,” said Mrs. Phillips. “Of course, when I was a girl, women weren’t supposed to.”

He saw her on to a bus at Kingston, and himself went back by train. They agreed they would not mention it to Mrs. Phillips. Not that she would have minded. The danger was that she would want to come, too; honestly thinking thereby to complete their happiness. It seemed to be tacitly understood there would be other such excursions. He took a note-book from under his pillow and commenced to scribble. 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.