people who in ordinary times are contented, even happy? You have made
yourself feared and hated in every country of the world. You have
brought America almost to the verge of revolution. And now, just when
England needs peace most, when affairs on the Continent are so
threatening and every one connected with the Government of the country
is passing through a time of the gravest anxiety, you intend, they say,
to start a campaign here. You say that you love the truth. Answer me
this question truthfully, then. Do you believe that you are justified?"

He had listened to her at first with a slight, tolerant smile upon his
lips, a smile which faded gradually away. He was sombre, almost stern,
when she had finished. He seemed in some curious way to have assumed a
larger shape, to have become more imposing. His attitude had a strange
and indefinable influence upon her.

She was suddenly conscious of her youth and inexperience--bitterly and
rebelliously conscious of them--before he had even opened his lips. Her
own words sounded crude and unconvincing.

"I am not one of the flamboyant orators of the Socialist party, Lady
Elisabeth," he said, "nor am I one of those who are able to see much joy
or very much hopefulness in life under present conditions. For every
word I have spoken and every line I have written, I accept the full and
complete responsibility."

"Those men who were murdered in Chicago, murdered at your instigation
because they tried to break the strike--what of them?"

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child.