figure till it was lost in the darkness. It was not till
he lay upon his dying bed that he confessed it. But each evening, from
that day, he would steal into the room and see to it himself that the
window was left ajar.

After the coffee, Mrs. Phillips proposed their adjourning to the "drawing-
room" the other side of the folding doors, which had been left open.
Phillips asked her to leave Joan and himself where they were. He wanted
to talk to her. He promised not to bore her for more than ten minutes.

The others rose and moved away. Hilda came and stood before Joan with
her hands behind her.

"I am going to bed now," she said. "I wanted to see you from what Papa
told me. May I kiss you?"

It was spoken so gravely that Joan did not ask her, as in lighter mood
she might have done, what it was that Phillips had said. She raised her
face quietly, and the child bent forward and kissed her, and went out
without looking back at either of them, leaving Joan more serious than
there seemed any reason for. Phillips filled his pipe and lighted it.

"I wish I had your pen," he said, suddenly breaking the silence. "I'm
all right at talking; but I want to get at the others: the men and women
who never come, thinking it has nothing to do with them. I'm shy and
awkward when I try to write. There seems a barrier in front of me. You
break through it. One hears your voice. Tell me," he said, "are you
getting your way? Do they answer you?"

"Yes," said Joan. "Not any great number of them, not yet. But enough to
show that I really am interesting them. It grows every week."

"Tell them that," he said. "Let them hear each other. It's the same at
a meeting. You wait ten minutes sometimes before one man will summon up
courage to put a question; but once one or two have ventured they spring
up all round you. I was wondering," he added, "if you would help me; let
me use you, now and again."

"It is what I should love," she answered. "Tell me what to do." She was
not conscious of the low, vibrating tone in which she spoke.

"I want to talk to them," he said, "about their stomachs. I want them to
see the need of concentrating upon the food problem: insisting that it
shall be solved. The other things can follow."

"There was an old Egyptian chap," he said, "a governor of one of their
provinces, thousands of years before the Pharaohs were ever heard of.
They dug up his tomb a little while ago. It bore this insc