He could guess the wrench to such a practical mind as hers to part with her career, to give up with almost quixotic decision the greatest prize in her profession. But faced now with the necessity she did not hesitate. “I have saved very little,” she said quite simply. “And I don’t quite see how I am going to get work--certainly not immediately, if at all. The U. P. may be able to close every door. He says they can. However ... no matter ... there it is. I’ll go and telephone to them now.” His own will had steeled hers for the task. So be it! Let the die be cast! But as he sat at the restaurant table, looking all the facts in the face, the oppression upon his heart was almost more than he could bear. Storm clouds lowered on every hand, heavy with menace. The future was dark to the verge of the terrible. As Helen returned, that virile figure, so strong, so sane, so alive with courage and capacity braced him for his own great throw. “You’ve cut the painter?” “Yes,” she said in a low voice. “Well now, my darling,” he said with the odd tenderness which always made him so hard to resist, “we stand together or we fall. Let us get married at once with the least possible fuss.” She did not yield at once. Elementally she was very feminine. Besides, there were strong arguments to bring against unseemly haste. It would be a bitter blow to John’s mother who had quite other views for her ewe lamb. And what, pray, had they to set up housekeeping upon, now that Helen had just cast away her princely thousand dollars a month? John, however, had given thought to all that. The old lady, with Helen’s consent, should stay on at Wyndham where things might remain exactly as they were for the rest of her days; and Helen and he could take a small house in London. At the start, it was true, the house in London would have to be a very modest affair. He had a few hundred a year of his own, plus a few hundred more as a member of parliament; but now that the U. P. had raised the fiery cross, that source of revenue would probably disappear at the next general election, which by all the portents could not be long delayed. When his mother died he would have Wyndham and her entire income, which, however, at the present time was barely sufficient to keep up an old and much depreciated property. It would be foolish to shirk the fact that for the time being they would have to pare cheese. They would find themselves with their backs to the wall, with calumny and misrepresentation on every hand; but let them stand shoulder to shoulder, their colors nailed to the mast. No matter what happened they would go down fighting. The light in his eyes decided Helen. She, too, belonged to a free people. “Yes,” she said, “we’ll stand or fall together.” He grasped, in his boy’s way, the hand of a good comrade. “We’ll break the International Newspaper Ring, or it shall break us.”