"Poor Hands!" said the editor, "he was a nice fellow. Rather unpractical and dreamy, but a nice fellow. Owing to him we had the greatest chance that any paper has ever had in the history of journalism. We owe him a great debt. The present popularity and influence of the paper has dwarfed, positively dwarfed, all its rivals. I have given the poor fellow three columns to-day; I wish I could do more." "Do you not think, Mr. Ommaney," asked Mrs. Armstrong, "that in the enormous publication of telegrams and political foreign news, the glorious fact that the world has at last awakened to a knowledge of the glorious truths of real religion is being swamped and forgotten? After all, what will be the greatest thing in history a hundred years from now? Will it not be the death of the old superstitions rather than a mutiny in the East or a war with Russia? Will not the names of the pioneers of truth remain more firmly fixed in the minds of mankind than those of generals and chancellors?" The editor made it quite plain that these were speculations with which he had nothing whatever to do. "It's dead, Mrs. Armstrong," he said brutally. "The religious aspect is utterly dead, and wouldn't sell an extra copy of the paper. It would be madness to touch it now. The public gaze is fixed on Kabul River and St. Petersburg, Belgrade and Constantinople. They have almost forgotten that Jerusalem exists. I sent out twelve special correspondents ten days ago." Mrs. Armstrong sighed deeply. It was true, bitterly true. She was no longer of any importance in the public eye. No one asked her to lecture now. The mass meetings were all over. Not a single copy of _John Mulgrave_ had been sold for a month. How differently she had pictured it all on that winter's morning at Sir Michael's; how brightly and gloriously it had begun, and now how bitter the _dénouement_, how utterly beyond foresight? What was this superstition, this Christianity which in its death struggles could overthrow a world? "_The decisive events of the world occur in the intellect._" Yes, but how soon do they leave their parent and outstrip its poor control? There was no need for women _now_. That was the bitterest thought of all. The movement was over--done with. A private in the Guards was a greater hero than the leader of an intellectual movement. What a monstrous _bouleversement_ of everything! Again the lady sighed deeply. "No," she said again, "the world was not yet strong enough to bear the truth. I have sold my Consols," she continued; "I have been advised to do so. I was investing for my daughter when I am gone. Newspaper shares are the things to buy now, I suppose! My brokers told me that I was doing the wisest thing. They said that they could not recover for years."