ion. It helped to curb the
masses of the people, and if that was what John was thinking of----

The Prime Minister paused and stopped.

"Tell me, my boy," touching John's arm, "do you intend yourself to
live--in short, the--well, after the example of the life of Christ?"

"As far as my weak and vain and sinful nature will permit, uncle!"

"And in what way would you propose to apply your new idea of
Christianity?"

"My experiment would be made on a social basis, sir, and first of all in
relation to women." John was hot all over, and his face had flushed up to
the eyes.

The Prime Minister glanced stealthily across the table, passed his thin
hand across his forehead, and thought, "So that's how it is!" But John
was deep in his theme and saw nothing. The present position of women was
intolerable. Upon the well-being of women, especially of working women,
the whole welfare of society rested. Yet what was their condition? Think
of it--their dependence on man, their temptations, their rewards, their
punishments! Three halfpence an hour was the average wage of a working
woman in England!--and that in the midst of riches, in the heart of
luxury, and with one easy and seductive means of escape from poverty
always open. Ruin lay in wait for them, and was beckoning them and
enticing them in the shape of dancing houses and music halls and rich and
selfish men.

"Not one man in a million, sir, would come through such an ordeal
unharmed. And yet what do we do?--what does the Church do for these brave
creatures on whose virtue and heroism the welfare of the nation depends?
If they fall it cuts them off, and there is nothing before them but the
streets or crime or the Union or suicide. And meanwhile it marries the
men who have tempted them to the snug and sheltered darlings for whose
wealth or rank or beauty they have been pushed aside. Oh, uncle, when I
walk down Regent Street in the daytime I am angry, but when I walk down
Regent Street at night I am ashamed. And then to think of the terrible
solitude of London to working girls who want to live pure lives--the
terrible spiritual loneliness!"

John's voice was breaking, but the Prime Minister had almost ceased to
hear. Thinking he had realized the truth at last, his own youth seemed to
be sitting before him and he felt a deep pity.

"Coffee here or in the library, your lordship?" said the man at his
elbow.

"The library," he answered, and taking John's arm again he returne