uired.

"I cannot prevent your doing that."

"The speculation is an interesting one," Mr. Bullen went on, still
fingering the penholder. "Is Mr. X---- a German?"

Norgate was silent.

"I cannot answer questions," he said, "until you have expressed
your views."

"You can have them, then," Mr. Bullen declared.

"You can go back to Mr. X---- and tell him this. Ireland needs help
sorely to-day from all her sons, whether at home or in foreign
countries. More than anything she needs money. The million pounds of
which you speak would be a splendid contribution to what I may term our
war chest. But as to my views, here they are. It is my intention, and
the intention of my Party, to fight to the last gasp for the literal
carrying out of the bill which is to grant us our liberty. We will not
have it whittled away or weakened one iota. Our lives, and the lives of
greater men, have been spent to win this measure, and now we stand at
the gates of success. We should be traitors if we consented to part with
a single one of the benefits it brings us. Therefore, you can tell Mr.
X---- that should this Government attempt any such trickery as he not
unreasonably suspects, then his conditions will be met. My men shall
fight, and their cause will be just."

"So far," Norgate admitted, "this is very satisfactory."

"To pass on," Mr. Bullen continued, "let me at once confess that I find
something sinister, Mr. Norgate, in this mysterious visit of yours, in
the hidden identity of Mr. X----. I suspect some underlying motive
which prompts the offering of this million pounds. I may be wrong, but
it seems to me that I can see beneath it all the hand of a foreign
enemy of England."

"Supposing you were right, Mr. Bullen," Norgate said, "what is England
but a foreign enemy of Ireland?"

A light flashed for a moment in Mr. Bullen's eyes. His lip curled
inwards.

"Young man," he demanded, "are you an Englishman?"

"I am," Norgate admitted.

"You speak poorly, then. To proceed to the matter in point, my word is
pledged to fight. I will plunge the country I love into civil war to gain
her rights, as greater patriots than I have done before. But the thing
which I will not do is to be made the cat's-paw, or to suffer Ireland to
be made the cat's-paw, of Germany. If war should come before the
settlement of my business, this is the position I should take. I would
cross to Dublin, and I would tell every Nationalist Volunteer to shoulder
his