his England.  Parliament was the field, Government the office.  How many conversations had passed between him and Diana on that patriotic dream!  She had often filled his drooping sails; he owned it proudly:—­and while the world, both the hoofed and the rectilinear portions, were biting at her character!  Had he fretted her self-respect?  He blamed himself, but a devoted service must have its term.

The paper of Mr. Tonans was reserved for perusal at breakfast.  He reserved it because Tonans was an opponent, tricksy and surprising now and then, amusing too; unlikely to afford him serious reflections.  The recent endeavours of his journal to whip the Government-team to a right-about-face were annoying, preposterous.  Dacier had admitted to Diana that Tonans merited the thanks of the country during ’the discreditable Railway mania, when his articles had a fine exhortative and prophetic twang, and had done marked good.  Otherwise, as regarded the Ministry, the veering gusts of Tonans were objectionable:  he ‘raised the breeze’ wantonly as well as disagreeably.  Any one can whip up the populace if he has the instruments; and Tonans frequently intruded on the Ministry’s prerogative to govern.  The journalist was bidding against the statesman.  But such is the condition of a rapidly Radicalizing country!  We must take it as it is.

With a complacent, What now, Dacier fixed his indifferent eyes on the first column of the leaders.  He read, and his eyes grew horny.  He jerked back at each sentence, electrified, staring.  The article was shorter than usual.  Total Repeal was named; the precise date when the Minister intended calling Parliament together to propose it.  The ’Total Repeal’ might be guess-work—­an Editor’s bold stroke; but the details, the date, were significant of positive information.  The Minister’s definite and immediate instructions were exactly stated.

Where could the fellow have got hold of that?  Dacier asked the blank ceiling.

He frowned at vacant corners of the room in an effort to conjure some speculation indicative of the source.

Had his Chief confided the secret to another and a traitor?  Had they been overheard in his library when the project determined on was put in plain speech?

The answer was no, impossible, to each question.

He glanced at Diana.  She?  But it was past midnight when he left her.  And she would never have betrayed him, never, never.  To imagine it a moment was an injury to her.

Where else could he look?  It had been specially mentioned in the communication as a secret by his Chief, who trusted him and no others.  Up to the consultation with the Cabinet, it was a thing to be guarded like life itself.  Not to a soul except Diana would Dacier have breathed syllable of any secret—­and one of this weight!

He ran down the article again.  There were the facts; undeniable facts; and they detonated with audible roaring and rounding echoes of them over England.  How did they come there?  As well inquire how man came on the, face of the earth.