For there had arisen, during these latter years, a man of the people, to lead what Lady Coryston called the "revolution"--a man who had suffered cruelties, so it was said, at the hands of the capitalist and employing class; who, as a young miner, blacklisted because of the part he had taken in a successful strike, had gone, cap in hand, to mine after mine, begging vainly for work, his wife and child tramping beside him. The first wife and her child had perished, so the legend ran, at any rate, of hardship and sheer lack of food. That insolent conspicuous girl who was now the mistress of his house was the daughter of a second wife, a middle-class woman, married when he was already in Parliament, and possessed of a small competence which had been the foundation of her husband's political position. On that modest sum he had held his ground; and upon it, while England was being stirred from end to end by his demagogue's gift, he had built up a personal independence and a formidable power which had enabled him to bargain almost on equal terms with the two great parties. "We refused to pay his price," was the way in which Lady Coryston was accustomed to put it, "so the Liberals bought him--_dear_!" And he was now exacting from that luckless party the very uttermost farthing! Destruction of the Church; conscription, with a view, no doubt, to turning a workman-led army, in case of need, upon the possessing class; persecution of the landed interests; criminally heavy taxation--these were Apollyon's weapons. And against such things even a weak woman must turn to bay--must fight even her own heart, in the interests of her country. "Did I choose my post in life for myself?--its duties, its responsibilities? It was as much given to me as a soldier's place in the line of battle! Am I to shirk it because I am a woman? The women have no more right to run away than the men--vote or no vote! Haven't we eyes to see this ruin that's coming, and minds to baffle it with? If I make Corry rich?--and help thereby to throw England to the dogs? Am I to give him what he says he hates--land and money--to use for what _I_ hate--and what his father hated? Just because he is my son--my flesh and blood? He would scorn the plea himself--he has scorned it all his life. Then let him respect his mother--when she does the same." But meanwhile the "game," as Coryston was playing it?--what was to be done as to this episode and that?