'Now you block my way by an attempt at coercion. By forcing my hand you give my adherence an air of bargain-driving for a personal end. Exactly the mistake of the ignorant agitators in Trafalgar Square. You have a great deal to learn. This movement will go forward, not because of the agitation outside, but in spite of it. There are men in Parliament who would have been actively serving the Reform to-day--as actively as so vast a constitutional change----' She smiled faintly. 'And they haven't done it because----' 'Because it would have put a premium on breaches of decent behaviour and defiance of the law!' She looked at him with an attempt to appear to accept this version. What did it matter what reasons were given for past failure, if only the future might be assured? He had taken a piece of crumpled paper from his pocket and smoothed it out. 'Look here!' He held the telegram before her. She flushed with excitement as she read. 'This is very good. I see only one objection.' 'Objection!' 'You haven't sent it.' 'That is your fault.' And he looked as if he thought he spoke the truth. 'When did you write this?' 'Just before you came in--when she began to talk about----' 'Ah, Jean!' Vida gave him back the paper. 'That must have pleased Jean.' It was a master stroke, the casual giving back, and the invocation of a pleasure that had been strangled at the birth along with something greater. Did he see before him again the girl's tear-filled, hopeless eyes, that had not so much as read the wonderful message, too intent upon the death-warrant of their common happiness? He threw himself heavily into a chair, staring at the closed door. Behind it, in a prison of which this woman held the key, Jean waited for her life sentence. Stonor's look, his attitude, seemed to say that he too only waited now to hear it. He dropped his head in his hand. When Vida spoke, it was without raising her eyes from the ground. 'I could drive a hard-and-fast bargain with you; but I think I won't. If love and ambition both urge you on, perhaps----' She looked up a little defiantly, seeming to expect to meet triumph in his face. Instead, her eye took in the profound hopelessness of the bent head, the slackness of the big frame, that so suddenly had assumed a look of age. She went over to him silently, and stood by his side. 'After all,' she said, 'life hasn't been quite fair to you.' At the new thing in her voice he raised his heavy eyes. 'You fall out of one ardent woman's dreams into another's,' she said. 'Then you don't--after all, you don't mean to----' 'To keep you and her apart? No.' For the first time tears came into his eyes. After a little silence he held out his hand. 'What can I do for you?' She seemed not to see the hand he offered. Or did she only see that it was empty? She was looking at the other. Mere instinct made him close his left hand more firmly on the message.