His political achievements had not been distinguished. Sent as envoy to the States, he had so managed to ingratiate himself with the Prince of Orange as, in spite of the opposition of the English court, to be appointed commander of the English Regiment in the Dutch service, and the mouthpiece of His Highness to the English Whigs. James, who had always disliked him, had recalled him from The Hague despite the protests of the Stadtholder, and he had found himself so out of favour with Whitehall as to deem it wiser to travel in Italy for a year, though he had never relaxed his correspondence either with the Prince or the great Protestant nobles who had been thrown into the opposition by the imprudent actions of the King. He was in London now at some risk, as Lady Sunderland knew, and she waited rather curiously to hear what urgency had brought him back to the centre of intrigue. His acceptance of her graceful excuses for the Earl was as formal as her offering of them; so long ago had it been understood that she was always the intermediary between her astute lord and the powerful Whig opposition of which Mr. Sidney was secretly so active a member. "You and your friends will be glad of this," she said. He looked at her a hesitating half second, then replied with an unusual sincerity in the tones generally so smooth and expressionless. "Every Catholic who showeth his face is insulted, and a beadle hath been killed for endeavouring to defend a Romist chapel—the people are up at last." "I know," she answered calmly. "I feared that my lord would not be safe returning from Whitehall." "If they had seen him, by Heaven, he would not have been!" said Mr. Sidney. He spoke as if he understood the people’s point of view. Lax and careless as he was himself, Sunderland’s open and shameless apostasy roused in his mind some faint shadow of the universal hatred and scorn that all England poured on the renegade. My lady read him perfectly; she smiled. "How are you going to use this temper in the people?" she asked. "Is it to die out with the flames that consume the straw Popes, or is it to swell to something that may change the face of Europe?" Mr. Sidney rose as if his restless mood could not endure his body to sit still. "It may change the dynasty of England," he said. My lady kept her great eyes fixed on him. "You think so?" she responded softly. His blonde face was strengthened into a look of resolve and triumph. "The King hath gone too far." He spoke in an abrupt manner new to him. "No bribed electorate or packed parliament could force these measures—as we have seen to-day." There was, as he continued, an expression in his eyes that reminded the Countess of his brother Algernon, republican and patriot. "Is it not strange that he hath forgotten his father so soon, and his own early exile?" he said. "His over-confidence playeth into your hands," she answered. He gave a soft laugh, approached her, and said, in his old caressing tones—