"I don't see how the people ever consented to give up the power when once they'd got it." "Why, in the same way that kings used to lose it in the old days--by revolution." "Revolution? Who revolted?" "The many who were tyrannised over by the few. For that's what democracy really means." Monsignor smiled at what he conceived to be a paradox. "Well, I must go to the Cardinal," he said. "It's just on ten o'clock." CHAPTER II (I) It was three weeks later that the Benedictines took formal possession of Westminster Abbey, and simultaneously that Pontifical High Mass was sung in the University churches of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, to mark the inauguration of their new life. Monsignor Masterman was appointed to attend upon the Cardinals in the Abbey; and as he awoke that morning, it seemed to him once more as if he were living in a dream of strange and intoxicating unreality. Everywhere in the house, as he passed along the corridors, as he gave and received last instructions before starting, there seemed the same tension of expectancy. Finally, as he went up to the Cardinals' rooms to announce the start, he found the two prelates, both in their scarlet, sitting in silence, looking out over the crowded silent streets. He bowed at the door without speaking, and then, turning, led the way. As they came down to the door where the horsed State carriages were waiting, for a moment the wall and the avenue of faces, in front and to right and left, struck him almost with a sense of hostility. A murmur that was almost a roar greeted the gleam of scarlet as the Cardinals came out; then silence again, and a surge of down-bent heads as the two raised their hands in blessing.