Neither spoke for a while. Later on, they talked about the coming election. If the Party got back, Phillips would go to the Board of Trade. It would afford him a better platform for the introduction of his land scheme. Mr. Sam Halliday she liked at once. He was a clean-shaven, square-jawed young man, with quiet eyes and a pleasant voice.!

“Give him our love,” he said. “Tell him we came together, at the end.” “Powerless to rule. Powerful only to serve,” he answered. “Powerful as Christ was powerful; not as Caesar was powerful—powerful as those who have suffered and have failed, leaders of forlorn hopes—powerful as those who have struggled on, despised and vilified; not as those of whom all men speak well—powerful as those who have fought lone battles and have died, not knowing their own victory. It is those that serve, not those that rule, shall conquer.”

“So did Archimedes disappear,” he answered with a smile. “The nameless Roman soldier remained. That was hardly the survival of the fittest.” “I’ll grant you all that, sir,” answered the young soldier who had first spoken. He had long, delicate hands and eager, restless eyes. “War does bring out heroism. So does pestilence and famine. Read Defoe’s account of the Plague of London. How men and women left their safe homes, to serve in the pest-houses, knowing that sooner or later they were doomed. Read of the mothers in India who die of slow starvation, never allowing a morsel of food to pass their lips so that they may save up their own small daily portion to add it to their children’s. Why don’t we pray to God not to withhold from us His precious medicine of pestilence and famine? So is shipwreck a fine school for courage. Look at the chance it gives the captain to set a fine example. And the engineers who stick to their post with the water pouring in upon them. We don’t reconcile ourselves to shipwrecks as a necessary school for sailors. We do our best to lessen them. So did persecution bring out heroism. It made saints and martyrs. Why have we done away with it? If this game of killing and being killed is the fine school for virtue it is made out to be, then all our efforts towards law and order have been a mistake. We never ought to have emerged from the jungle.” He rose and took the letter from where he had placed it on the mantelpiece. He stooped and held it out above the fire and a little flame leaped up and seemed to take it from his hand.