“Useless!” said Westwood, throwing up his hands. “Police officers are excluded from the offer; they are the only people who could give such information. After the case at Rickmansworth, even if there are traitors in the League, who is likely to seal his own doom as Grady did? Besides, where the Home Office would pay a hundred pounds for betrayal, the men behind the metal disc would pay five hundred pounds for complicity and concealment.” “The public ought to demand the enforcement of the new Act,” argued Herrick hotly. “The public don’t understand how to enforce anything; they leave the weapons of agitation in the hands of the lawless, and trust to the executive for the protection of life and property; while the executive----” He shrugged his shoulders, and for a moment stood moodily staring at the wall. “The Government hope the crisis will be averted,” he resumed. “It needed the Phœnix Park murders to bring the Prevention of Crimes Act into force in Ireland. What price in horror and bloodshed will have to be paid in London before this campaign of outrage and dynamite is brought to an end, God only knows. I tell you, Herrick, that to pause or parley while these men perfect their plans is madness, and a betrayal of the nation!” He spoke with force and vehemence. For a moment his growing weakness had been shaken off. Carried away by his subject and his convictions, his voice and gestures gave some indication of the intellectual force that such a man could bring to bear in forensic argument and in debate. Then, suddenly, there was a swift and shocking change in Westwood’s manner and appearance. His rushing thoughts and excited utterance had produced a terrible reaction. Aldwyth and Herrick were at his side in a moment. They led him to a chair. He sat there, staring, with ghastly cheeks and twitching muscles, manifestly unable to control the convulsive motions of his lower limbs, or the movement of the hands, which kept rising and falling with involuntary gesticulations. Herrick, horror-struck, recalled the conversation he had overheard in the smoking-room below. CHAPTER IX FATHER FRANCIS AT FOLKESTONE When Herrick awoke on the following morning, after a night of restlessness and troubled dreams, the summer sunshine seemed to be almost mocking in its brilliancy. For, in spite of the gladness of Nature, the times were out of joint. There was something wrong with life. With a sigh of depression, as he recalled the occurrences of the previous night, he set about facing the problems of the day--his own problems and Aldwyth Westwood’s in particular.