“And supposing,” Fenn objected, “that to-morrow morning at eight o’clock, twenty-three of us are marched off to the Tower!  Our whole cause may be paralysed, all that we have worked for all these months will be in vain, and this accursed and bloody war may be dragged on until our politicians see fit to make a peace of words.”

“I know Mr. Stenson well,” the Bishop declared, “and I am perfectly convinced that he is too sane-minded a man to dream of taking such a step as you suggest.  He, at any rate, if others in his Cabinet are not so prescient, knows what Labour means.”

“I agree with the Bishop, for many reasons,” Furley pronounced.

“And I,” Cross echoed.

The sense of the meeting was obvious.  Fenn’s unpleasant looking teeth flashed for a moment, and his mouth came together with a little snap.

“This is entirely an informal gathering,” he said.  “I shall summon the Council to come together tomorrow at midday.”

“I think that we may sleep in our beds to-night without fear of molestation,” the Bishop remarked, “although if it had been the wish of the meeting, I would have broached the matter to Mr. Stenson.”

“You are an honorary member of the Council,” Fenn declared rudely.  “We don’t wish interference.  This is a national and international Labour movement.”

“I am a member of the Labour Party of Christ,” the Bishop said quietly.

“And an honoured member of this Executive Council,” Cross intervened.  “You’re a bit too glib with your tongue to-night, Fenn.”

“I think of those whom I represent,” was the curt reply.  “They are toilers, and they want the toilers to show their power.  They don’t want help from the Church.  I’ll go even so far,” he added, “as to say that they don’t want help from literature.  It’s their own job.  They’ve begun it, and they want to finish it.”

“To-morrow’s meeting,” Furley observed, “will show how far you are right in your views.  I consider my position, and the Bishop’s, as members of the Labour Party, on a par with your own.  I will go further and say that the very soul of our Council is embodied in the teachings and the writings of Paul Fiske, or, as we now know him to be, Julian Orden.”

Fenn rose to his feet.  He was trembling with passion.

“This informal meeting is adjourned,” he announced harshly.

Cross himself did not move.

“Adjourned or not it may be, Mr. Fenn,” he said, “but it’s no place of yours to speak for it.  You’ve thrust yourself into that chair, but that don’t make you chairman, now or at any other time.”

Fenn choked down the words which had seemed to tremble on his lips.  His enemies he knew, but there were others here who might yet be neutral.

“If I have assumed more than I should have done, I am sorry,” he said.  “I brought you news which I was in a hurry to deliver.  The rest followed.”