ely
dictating his correspondence. As one cylinder would fill it would
automatically ring, and he would turn to the other, an assistant
removing the filled cylinder.

We stood behind him at the end of the room afraid to interrupt, but he
turned and, seeing me, rose and came with outstretched hand.

"My brother Jefson," he said. "I know your first desire. You have been
to the concentration camp. I found your friend there. When I returned to
Cologne I found she had been arrested for assisting your escape. I
traced her to the camp, gave her your letter and saw much of her for
your sake. But she has gone--to Belgium. She was high-spirited. I talked
much to her of the Humanist creed, but she would have none of it: so on
her release she left for Belgium and she joined the woman called the
Belgian "Joan of Arc."

CHAPTER XXII.

The Great Combine.

"Your war has ended at last," said Wilbrid, after a long pause. "Ours is
but beginning; and our conquest will not be limited by an empire's
boundaries, or even by those of a continent. It will embrace the earth."
Having spoken he turned to the window and peered at the blood-red sunset
contemplatively.

I surveyed his tall, spare figure, his steel grey hair and sharply-cut
features, the latter pinked by the evening glow.

Here is a new Kaiser, I thought.

"You said a 'world conquest,'" I remarked to him. "Don't you think the
days have gone when persons should 'talk big'? The great war should
henceforth limit the ambitions of those who dream of world's dominion by
conquest."

"Do not misunderstand me," he said. "We shall conquer the world because
of the human appeal of our creed. Its basis is that the strength of a
nation lies in the welfare of its producers--the working class, and not
in its mighty armaments or individual wealth. There is not an atom of
national strength in the accumulation of much money by any individual.
Where wealth is in the hands of the few, misery stalks among the many;
and, where the masses are ill-fed and hopeless, moral and physical
strength cannot exist."

Then he walked from the window to his desk and back again; his arms
still behind him, flinging his phrases at us as he passed to and fro.

"Great things can only be achieved by combination," he went on. "The
victory of the Allies is proof of that. We are going to combine all
workers, and, in order to make our combination supreme, we will not
only organise those at work, but, also, tho