h enthusiasm for the cause which at first
had been very much like a matter of bread and cheese to them. It was
Paul Fiske who had formed their minds, who had put the great arguments
into their brains, who had armed them from head to foot with potent
reasonings. Four very ordinary men, of varying types, sincere men, all
of plebeian extraction, all with their faults, yet all united in one
purpose, were animated by that same fire of excitement. They hung over
the table towards her. She might have been the croupier and they the
gamblers who had thrown upon the table their last stake.

"In Julian Orden's rooms," she said, "I found a letter from the editor
of the British Review, warning him that his anonymity could not be
preserved much longer--that before many weeks had passed the world would
know that he was Paul Fiske. Here is the letter."

She passed it around. They studied it, one by one. They were all a
little stunned.

"Julian!" Furley exclaimed, in blank amazement. "Why, he's been pulling
my leg for more than a year!"

"The son of an Earl!" Cross gasped.

"Never mind about that. He is a democrat and honest to the backbone,"
Catherine declared. "The Bishop will tell you so. He has known him
all his life. Think! Julian Orden has no purpose to serve, no selfish
interest to further. He has nothing to gain, everything to lose. If he
were not sincere, if those words of his, which we all remember, did not
come from his heart, where could be the excuse, the reason, for what he
stands for? Think what it means to us!"

"He is the man, isn't he," Sands asked mysteriously, "whom they are
looking after down yonder?"

"I don't know where 'down yonder' is," Catherine replied, "but you have
him in your power somewhere. He left his rooms last Thursday at about a
quarter past six, to take that packet to the Foreign Office, or to make
arrangements for its being received there. He never reached the Foreign
Office. He hasn't been heard of since. Some of you know where he is. The
Bishop and I want to go and find him at once."

"Fenn and Bright know," Cross declared. "It's Bright's job."

"Why is Bright in it?" Catherine asked impatiently.

Cross frowned and puckered up his lips, an odd trick of his when he was
displeased.

"Bright represents the workers in chemical factories," he explained.
"They say that there isn't a poison in liquid, solid or gas form, that
he doesn't know all about. Chap who gives me kind of shivers whenev