"I make my appeal to you, Dartrey," he said. "You have put forward this man as your choice of a leader of the great Democratic Party, the party which is to combine all branches of Labour, the party which is to stand for the people. I charge him with having written in the last year of the war a scathing attack upon the greatest of British institutions, the trades unions, an article written from the extreme aristocratic standpoint, an article which, if published to-day and distributed broadcast amongst the miners and operatives of the north, would result in a revolution if his name were persisted in." "I have read everything Tallente has ever written, and I have never come across any such article," Dartrey declared promptly. "You have never come across it because it was never published," Miller continued, "and yet the fact remains that it was written and offered to the Universal Review. It was actually in type and was only held back at the earnest request of the Government, because on the very day that it should have appeared, an armistice was concluded between the railway men, the miners and the War Council, and the Government was terrified lest anything should happen to upset that armistice." "Is this true, Tallente?" Dartrey asked anxiously. "Perfectly. I admit the existence of the article and I admit that it was written with all the vigour I could command, on the lines quoted by Miller. Since, however, it was never published, it can surely be treated as nonexistent?" "That is just what it cannot be," Miller declared. "The signed manuscript of that article is in the hands of those who would rather see it published than have Tallente Prime Minister." "Blackmail," the latter remarked quietly. "You can call it what you please," was the sneering reply. "The facts are as I have stated them." "But what in the world could have induced you to write such an article, Tallente?" Dartrey demanded. "Your attitude towards Labour, even when you were in the Coalition Cabinet, was perfectly sound."