"You tell me to send you news. Not much about; but what there is, encouraging and good for the cause. There is very little doubt that at the general election, which will come off in a few months, we shall be stronger by far than we ever expected, and shall cut the combs of some of those aristocrats and plutocrats very close indeed. There is a general feeling that blood and moneybags have divided the spoil too long, and and that worth and intellect may be allowed a chance of being brought into play. There are three or four men at the club, whom you know, and who are tolerably certain of seats, and who, if once they get the opportunity of making their voices heard in Parliament, will show the world of what stuff real Englishmen consist. Who do you think is helping us immensely? Shimmer, he of Bliffkins's! He has got an engagement on the _Comet_--a new journal which has just started in our interest, and he is writing admirably. A good deal of Lemprière's dictionary, and Bohn's quotations, and Solomon's proverbs, mixed up with a dashing incisive style and sound Saxon English, has proved immensely telling. People are buying the _Comet_ everywhere, and Shimmer's salary has been twice raised, and he has been applied to for his photograph. He does not come much to Bliffkins's now, greatly to old Wickwar's relief. The old gentleman has expressed his opinion that since Robsperry (he is supposed to have meant Robespierre) there has been no such sanguinary democrat as Shimmer. When will you come back to us, Walter? I look at the place where I used to see you sitting, before I ever spoke to you; I sit and stare at it now until I feel my eyes---- D--d old fool! "Good-bye, boy. Let me hear from you again soon. You know what you promised if ever you wanted money or anything. J.B. "Opened again to say Shimmer has been here inquiring after you. _Comet_ people want a correspondent at Berlin--special and important. S. thinks you'll do. Will you go? J.B." The company had long since departed from Westhope; the family had long since retired to rest; dim lights glimmered here and there in the windows; but Walter Joyce remained sitting on the side of his bed, with Jack Byrne's open letter in his hand. When he wrote it the old man little thought what a field of painful speculation he had laid open for its recipient. CHAPTER XVI. "HE LOVES ME; HE LOVES ME NOT."