be you," suggested Miss Ensor.

Mary was leaning over the table. Miss Ensor's four-penny veal and ham
pie was ready. Mary arranged it in front of her. "Eat it while it's
hot, dearie," she counselled. "It won't be so indigestible."

Miss Ensor turned to her. "Oh, you talk to him," she urged. "Here, he's
lost his job again, and is losing his girl: all because of his silly
politics. Tell him he's got to have sense and stop it."

Mary seemed troubled. Evidently, as Miss Ensor had stated, advice was
not her line. "Perhaps he's got to do it, dearie," she suggested.

"What do you mean by got to do it?" exclaimed Miss Ensor. "Who's making
him do it, except himself?"

Mary flushed. She seemed to want to get back to her cooking. "It's
something inside us, dearie," she thought: "that nobody hears but
ourselves."

"That tells him to talk all that twaddle?" demanded Miss Ensor. "Have
you heard him?"

"No, dearie," Mary admitted. "But I expect it's got its purpose. Or he
wouldn't have to do it."

Miss Ensor gave a gesture of despair and applied herself to her pie. The
hirsute face of Mr. Simson had lost the foolish aggressiveness that had
irritated Joan. He seemed to be pondering matters.

Mary hoped that Joan was hungry. Joan laughed and admitted that she was.
"It's the smell of all the nice things," she explained. Mary promised it
should soon be ready, and went back to her corner.

A short, dark, thick-set man entered and stood looking round the room.
The frame must once have been powerful, but now it was shrunken and
emaciated. The shabby, threadbare clothes hung loosely from the stooping
shoulders. Only the head seemed to have retained its vigour. The face,
from which the long black hair was brushed straight back, was ghastly
white. Out of it, deep set beneath great shaggy, overhanging brows,
blazed the fierce, restless eyes of a fanatic. The huge, thin-lipped
mouth seemed to have petrified itself into a savage snarl. He gave Joan
the idea, as he stood there glaring round him, of a hunted beast at bay.

Miss Ensor, whose bump of reverence was undeveloped, greeted him
cheerfully as Boanerges. Mr. Simson, more respectful, rose and offered
his small, grimy hand. Mary took his hat and cloak away from him and
closed the door behind him. She felt his hands, and put him into a chair
close to the fire. And then she introduced him to Joan.

Joan started on hearing his name. It was one well known