as prevented from reaching the
Foreign Office and was rendered for a time incapable. The consideration
of our further action with regard to him was to depend upon his
attitude. Owing, no doubt, to some slight error in Bright's treatment.
Orden has escaped from the place of safety in which he had been placed.
He is now at large, and his story, together with the packet, will
probably be in the hands of the Foreign Office some time to-night."

"Giving them," Cross remarked grimly, "the chance to get in the first
blow--warrants for high treason, eh, against the twenty-three of us?"

"I don't fear that," Fenn asserted, "not if we behave like sensible
men. My proposal is that we anticipate, that one of us sees the Prime
Minister to-morrow morning and lays the whole position before him."

"Without the terms," Furley observed.

"I know exactly what they will be," Fenn pointed out. "The trouble, of
course, is that the missing packet contains the signature of the three
guarantors. The packet, no doubt, will be in the hands of the Foreign
Office by to-morrow. The Prime Minister can verify our statements. We
present our ultimatum a little sooner than we intended, but we get our
blow in first and we are ready."

The Bishop leaned forward in his place.

"Forgive me if I intervene for one moment," he begged. "You say that
Julian Orden has escaped. Are we to understand that he is absolutely at
liberty and in a normal state of health?"

Fenn hesitated for a single second.

"I have no reason to believe the contrary," he said.

"Still, it is possible," the Bishop persisted, "that Julian Orden may
not be in a position to forward that document to the Foreign Office
for the present? If that is so, I am inclined to think that the Prime
Minister would consider your visit a bluff. Certainly, you would have no
argument weighty enough to induce him to propose the armistice. No man
could act upon your word alone. He would want to see these wonderful
proposals in writing, even if he were convinced of the justice of your
arguments."

There was a little murmur of approval. Fenn leaned forward.

"You drive me to a further disclosure," he declared, after a moment's
hesitation, "one, perhaps, which I ought already to have made. I have
arranged for a duplicate of that packet to be prepared and forwarded.
I set this matter on foot the moment we heard from Miss Abbeway here of
her mishap. The duplicate may reach us at any moment."

"Then I pr