“My dear Claude, our loss is gain.  The delay of the next four years was really necessary, that we might consolidate our party.  And I leave you to judge, if it has grown to its present size in but a few months, what dimensions it will have attained before the next election.  We require the delay, too, to discover who are our really best men; not merely as orators, but as workers; and you English ought to know better than any nation, that the latter class of men are those whom the world most needs—­that though Aaron may be an altogether inspired preacher, yet it is only slow-tongued practical Moses, whose spokesman he is, who can deliver Israel from their taskmasters.  Besides, my dear fellow, we really want the next four years—­’tell it not in Gath’—­to look about us and see what is to be done.  Your wisest Englishmen justly complain of us, that our ‘platform’ is as yet a merely negative one; that we define what the South shall not do, but not what the North shall.  Ere four years be over, we will have a ’positive platform,’ at which you shall have no cause to grumble.”

“I still think with Marie, that your ‘positive platform’ is already made for you, plain as the sun in heaven, as the lightnings of Sinai.  Free those slaves at once and utterly!”

“Impatient idealist!  By what means?  By law, or by force?  Leave us to draw a cordon, sanitaire round the tainted States, and leave the system to die a natural death, as it rapidly will if it be prevented from enlarging its field.  Don’t fancy that a dream of mine.  None know it better than the Southerners themselves.  What makes them ready just now to risk honour, justice, even the common law of nations and humanity, in the struggle for new slave territory?  What but the consciousness that without virgin soil, which will yield rapid and enormous profit to slave labour, they and their institution must be ruined!”

“The more reason for accelerating so desirable a consummation, by freeing the slaves at once.”

“Humph!” said Stangrave with a smile.  “Who so cruel at times as your too benevolent philanthropist?  Did you ever count the meaning of those words?  Disruption of the Union, an invasion of the South by the North; and an internecine war, aggravated by the horrors of a general rising of the slaves, and such scenes as Hayti beheld sixty years ago.  If you have ever read them, you will pause ere you determine to repeat them on a vaster scale.”

“It is dreadful, Heaven knows, even in thought!  But, Stangrave, can any moderation on your part ward it off?  Where there is crime, there is vengeance; and without shedding of blood is no remission of sin.”

“God knows!  It may be true:  but God forbid that I should ever do aught to hasten what may come.  Oh, Claude, do you fancy that I, of all men, do not feel at moments the thirst for brute vengeance?”

Claude was silent.