'Was _that_ why you----' he began, in a voice that was almost a whisper. 'Was that why?' She nodded, speechless a moment for tears. 'Day and night there it was between my thought of you and me.' He sat down, staring at her. 'When I was most unhappy,' she went on, in that low voice, 'I would wake thinking I heard it cry. It was my own crying I heard, but I seemed to have it in my arms. I suppose I was mad. I used to lie there in that lonely farmhouse pretending to hush it. It was so I hushed myself.' 'I never knew----' 'I didn't blame you. You couldn't risk being with me.' 'You agreed that, for both our sakes----' 'Yes, you had to be very circumspect. You were so well known. Your autocratic father, your brilliant political future----' 'Be fair. Our future--as I saw it then.' 'Yes, everything hung on concealment. It must have looked quite simple to you. You didn't know the ghost of a child that had never seen the light, the frail thing you meant to sweep aside and forget'--she was on her feet--'_have_ swept aside and forgotten!--you didn't know it was strong enough to push you out of my life.' With an added intensity, 'It can do more!' she said. She leaned over his bowed figure and whispered, 'It can push that girl out!' As again she stood erect, half to herself she added, 'It can do more still.' 'Are you threatening me?' he said dully. 'No, I am preparing you.' 'For what?' 'For the work that must be done. Either with your help or that girl's.' The man's eyes lifted a moment. 'One of two things,' she said--'either her life, and all she has, given to this new Service; or a ransom if I give her up to you.' 'I see. A price. Well----?' She looked searchingly at him for an instant, and then slowly shook her head. 'Even if I could trust you to pay the price,' she said, 'I'm not sure but what a young and ardent soul as faithful and as pure as hers--I'm not sure but I should make a poor bargain for my sex to give that up for anything you could do.' He found his feet like a man roused out of an evil dream to some reality darker than the dream. 'In spite of your assumption, she may not be your tool,' he said. 'You are horribly afraid she is! But you are wrong. She's an instrument in stronger hands than mine. Soon my little personal influence over her will be merged in something infinitely greater. Oh, don't think it's merely I that have got hold of Jean Dunbarton.' 'Who else?' 'The New Spirit that's abroad.' With an exclamation he turned away. And though his look branded the idea for a wild absurdity, sentinel-like he began to pace up and down a few yards from Jean's door. 'How else,' said the woman, 'should that inexperienced girl have felt the new loyalty and responded as she did?' '"New," indeed!' he said under his breath, 'however little "loyal."'