Of course a cordon of constables had been quickly drawn around the building, and detectives had watched anxiously day and night. Futile! as it soon became evident, when news reached the Government a few days later that Gloria de Lara had addressed a meeting in the north of England, that the police and troops hastily summoned had attempted to arrest her, but that, securely guarded by the Women’s Border Light Horse Volunteers, she had managed to effect an escape, and no trace of her whereabouts had up till then been obtained. Energetic authorities, however, took care to cap this unwelcome intelligence with the information that the police were prosecuting an unremitting search! _Cui bono?_ Meeting upon meeting had followed; concourse after concourse had assembled. Simultaneously they would be heard of in the north, south, east, and west of England, of Scotland, or of Ireland. No public placards or advertisements announced these meetings, and yet they were always well attended. It seemed as though some secret, mysteriously silent fiery cross passed through the districts in which they were held. But the authorities could not say for certain; they could only surmise. Machinery was at work beneath the surface which they had no power to fathom. The speakers at these meetings were manifold and various. The D’Estrangeite members were particularly active, but after Gloria de Lara and Flora Desmond, the people’s favourites were undoubtedly the Duke of Ravensdale, Nigel Estcourt, Lady Manderton, Launcelot Trevor, Archie Douglasdale, and Jack Delamere! Wonder of wonders! What! Colonel Delamere? The swagger Guardsman, the spoilt child of Society, the man whose life had hitherto been one long succession of amusement and pleasure? Is it possible? Quite so. There is no impossibility when Nature steps in to the rescue. What influence has been at work thus to change the current of Jack Delamere’s pleasant but useless existence? What has induced him to take up the cudgels for Gloria de Lara’s cause? Ay, what? Ever since that evening when, in obedience to orders, Jack Delamere had charged the crowd which barred the way between his Blues and the White Guards, ever since that day when he had marked the heroism of those men and women that composed it, ever since he had seen them go down before the horses of his troopers, sacrificing their lives so that their idol’s might be spared, Jack Delamere had been a faithful and devoted adherent of the D’Estrangeite cause. Perhaps, too, his love for Flora Desmond may have influenced him. Who knows? The influence of a noble and high-souled woman is surely the greatest incentive a man can have to do right.