"Why not? It's a bagatelle to me. And the game will soon be up. I can feed a few thousands in London, but I can't feed a nation. Either I send a cable to Charleston surrendering to my men or I do not. If I do, it will cost me half my fortune; if I don't and this frost holds, you'll see red hell in England before twenty days have run." "Then the rumours about the strike breaking at Liverpool are true? There is something in them?" "There is everything in them. The government can deal with this side if I deal with the other. It's up to me in the end and I must say 'Yes,' or 'No.' If I say 'Yes,' all America will laugh at me--if I don't, well who's to charge me? That's the situation, that and your own people, who are going to give the politicians their day. I tell you, it's a considerable proposition and is going to make me older before I have done with it." He was unusually earnest, and his manner forbade any inquiry as to what had happened in Downing Street, a matter Trevelle's curiosity would have probed if it could. To be candid, this polished gentleman, who indirectly had brought the fact of Faber's presence in England to the notice of the government, was immensely pleased by the part he had played in the stirring events of recent days. Not a lover of money, but a persistent seeker after social credit, when it could be gained by worthy ends, Trevelle had won distinction in twenty ways: as a founder of boys' camps, an officer of Territorials, and a promoter of some schemes which had become national. And here he was in these critical days by the side of the man whose genius might well be the salvation of his fellow-countrymen. Then entered Liverpool a little late in the afternoon, and went at once to the scene of the strike. It was bitterly cold weather, but nothing to justify the fearsome stories which had delighted London for some days past. The strike itself appeared to be the result as much of lack of work as of any fundamental discontent; starvation had been busy here, and the fruits of starvation were now to be reaped. As in London, haggard gangs paraded the streets and clamoured for bread; there were turbulent scenes in the darker quarters of the city, and not a little of that unmeasured mischief which ever treads upon the heels of want. An interview with the men's leaders convinced Faber that America alone could unlock the doors of this compulsory idleness, and it set his own responsibility once more in a lurid light. Let him cable that message of surrender and the end would be at hand; but in that case his own people would call him a genius no more and Wall Street would deride him. He saw himself as the enemy of the British people, dominant in victory and yet upon the eve of a defeat which never could be retrieved. And if this befell him a woman must answer for it--an ancient story truly.