r master
back to you. Will you take me downstairs, please, and fetch me a taxi?"

"Certainly, madam!"

She looked back from the threshold.

"I shall telephone to Westminster in a few minutes, Mr. Fenn," she said.
"I hope I shall be in time to stop the others from coming. Perhaps you
had better wait here, in case they have already started."

He made no reply. To Catherine the world had become so wonderful that
his existence scarcely counted.

CHAPTER XII

Catherine, notwithstanding her own excitement, found genuine pleasure in
the bewildered enthusiasm with which the Bishop received her astounding
news. She found him alone in the great, gloomy house which he usually
inhabited when in London, at work in a dreary library to which she was
admitted after a few minutes' delay. Naturally, he received her tidings
at first almost with incredulity. A heartfelt joy, however, followed
upon conviction.

"I always liked Julian," he declared. "I always believed that he had
capacity. Dear me, though," he went on, with a whimsical little smile,
"what a blow for the Earl!"

Catherine laughed.

"Do you remember the evening we all talked about the Labour question?
Time seems to have moved so rapidly lately, but it was scarcely a week
ago."

"I remember," the Bishop acknowledged. "And, my dear young lady," he
went on warmly, "now indeed I feel that I can offer you congratulations
which come from my heart."

She turned a little away.

"Don't," she begged. "You would have known very soon, in any case--my
engagement to Julian Orden was only a pretence."

"A pretence?"

"I was desperate," she explained. "I felt I must have that packet back
at any price. I went to his rooms to try and steal it. Well, I was found
there. He invented our engagement to help me out."

"But you went off to London together, the neat day?" the Bishop reminded
her.

"It was all part of the game," she sighed. "What a fool he must have
thought me! However, I am glad. I am riotously, madly glad. I am glad
for the cause, I am glad for all our sakes. We have a great recruit,
Bishop, the greatest we could have. And think! When he knows the truth,
there will be no more trouble. He will hand us over the packet. We
shall know just where we stand. We shall know at once whether we dare to
strike the great blow."

"I was down at Westminster this afternoon," the Bishop told her. "The
whole mechanism of the Council of Labour seems to be complete. Twenty