I disapprove of this war, and I know it’s wrong—­it’s a foul mess that we’ve been got into by those who should have known better—­but I ain’t like Fenn about it.  We’re in it, and we’ve got to get out of it, not like cowards but like Englishmen, and if fighting had been the only way through, then I should have been for fighting to the last gasp.  Fortunately, we’ve got into touch with the sensible folk on the other side.  If we hadn’t—­well, I’ll say no more but that I’ve got two boys fighting and one buried at Ypres, and I’ve another, though he’s over young, doing his drill.”

“Mr. Cross,” Julian said, “you’ve done me more good than any one I’ve talked to since the war began.”

“That’s right, lad,” Cross replied.  “You get straight words from one; and not only that, you get the words of another million behind me, who feel as I do.  But,” he added, glancing across the room and lowering his voice, “keep your eye on that artful devil, Fenn.  He doesn’t bear you any particular good will.”

“He wasn’t exactly a hospitable gaoler,” Julian reminiscently observed.

“I’m not speaking of that only,” Cross went on.  “There wasn’t one of us who didn’t vote for squeezing that document out of you one way or the other, and if it had been necessary to screw your neck off for it, I don’t know as one of us would have hesitated, for you were standing between us and the big thing.  But he and that little skunk Bright ain’t to be trusted, in my mind, and it seems to me they’ve got a down on you.  Fenn counted on being heart of this Council, for one thing, and there’s a matter of a young woman, eh, for another?”

“A young woman?” Julian repeated.

Cross nodded.

“The Russian young person—­Miss Abbeway, she calls herself.  Fenn’s been her lap-dog round here—­takes her out to dine and that.  It’s just a word of warning, that’s all.  You’re new amongst us, Mr. Orden, and you might think us all honest men.  Well, we ain’t; that’s all there is to it.”

Julian recovered from a momentary fit of astonishment.

“I am much obliged to you for your candour, Mr. Cross,” he said.

“And never you mind about the ‘Mr.’, sir,” the Northumbrian begged.

“Nor you about the `sir’,” Julian retorted, with a smile.

“Middle stump,” Cross acknowledged.  “And since we are on the subject, my new friend, let me tell you this.  To feel perfectly happy about this Council, there’s just three as I should like to see out of it—­Fenn, Bright—­and the young lady.”

“Why the young lady?” Julian asked quickly.

“You might as well ask me, `Why Fenn and Bright?’” the other replied.  “I shouldn’t make no answer.  We’re superstitious, you know, we north country folk, and we are all for instincts.  All I can say to you is that there isn’t one of those three I’d trust around the corner.”

“Miss Abbeway is surely above suspicion?” Julian protested.  “She has given up a great position and devoted the greater part of her fortune towards the causes which you and I and all of us are working for.”