The white-haired veteran, who had spent his early youth fighting his country's battles on the Empire's frontiers, and, in later days, had devoted all his energies to the furthering of Britain's supremacy on the seas, passed one strong hand over his lined brow. He swallowed like a man choking back an emotion threatening to overwhelm him. Then the flush died out of his rugged cheeks, and he smiled at the son he loved, and who was his one remaining relative. "Forgive me, my boy, but—but all I've said is true. I don't think many will deny it. Anyway those who do are lying to their own consciences, or—or are purblind in their insane egoism."
Ruxton smiled responsively and thrust back his chair.
"There's no forgiveness needed, Dad," he said. "You have quoted but a few of the hundred signs, of which we all have proof, that when war broke out patriotism had only the smallest possible part in the life of this country. From the beginning to the end of this war England has had to pay out of her coffers, to those of her people whose services she needed, a price so extortionate that one wonders if it is not all some hideous nightmare and in truth unreal. But tell me, Dad," he went on after a pause, "you spoke just now of inventors, and your manner suggested that there was something—important."
Sir Andrew rose from the table and led the way towards the distant folding doors.
"Well, I don't know if it will prove to be anything—worth while."
He fumbled at an inner pocket of his dinner coat, and produced a letter written on thin paper. When they reached the great hall and stood under the brilliant electrolier he unfolded it and held it out for his son's perusal.
"I get lots of them," he said almost apologetically, "and few enough turn out worth while. This one reads a little different. That's all."
"Sir,
"You are a great shipmaster. You owned a fleet of merchant shipping when war broke out of forty-two coastwise and thirty-five ocean-going ships. At the end of the war you owned thirteen coastwise and twenty-one ocean-going traders. I have a means of saving you any such loss by submarine in the future. May I be permitted to show you my invention?
"Truly yours,
"Charles Smith.
"P.S.—Absolute secrecy is necessary. A simple 'yes' addressed by wire to Veevee, London, will be sufficient."
"The wording of it is so unusual that it—interested me," Sir Andrew went on, as Ruxton began to read the letter a second time.
Presently the younger man looked up from his reading.
"That's your imagination working, Dad," he said, smiling. Then he added: "Let it work. Let it run riot. That's what we want in England—now. I should see this man. I think he is a foreigner—in spite of his English name."
The John Bull face of the elder man wreathed into a warm smile as he looked up at his towering son.
"I had decided to," he said quietly.
Ruxton handed him back the letter. Then he moved across to the great mullioned window and looked out upon the perfect summer night. The moon was shining at its full and not a cloud was visible anywhere.
"I have some letters to write, my boy," Sir Andrew went on. "If you want me I shall be in the library. What are you going to do?"
"I think I shall take a stroll along the cliffs. It'll do me good, Dad. I want to feel our beloved Yorkshire cliffs under my feet again, and make sure they're—still there."
Ruxton laughed.
"The General Election is on August 21st, isn't it?" his father enquired presently. "You've got seven weeks in which to recuperate, and get the cobwebs blown off you."
"I always get rid of bad fancies up here in my native air," Ruxton said lightly. "I'm glad we haven't a strenuous campaign."
"No. We shall win all right."
"Win?" Ruxton laughed. "The National Party will sweep the polls. Labor will be opposed to us as Labor will oppose any party. They will always be with us. But even if the extreme Radicals were to link forces with them, they couldn't obtain a twenty-five per cent. representation. No, Dad, whatever the country failed to realize during the first two years of war, it's been all brought home to it now. The English housewife has been driven to a sweeping and garnishing of her home. We've driven her to that, and the National Party is—going to see she does it thoroughly."
The younger man's enthusiasm drew an approving smile from his father. Also a world of pride in this great, fair-haired idealist shone in his eyes.
"Sweep and garnish. That's it, boy," he said ardently. "And what a sweeping, what a garnishing is needed. I wonder. Can it be done?"
"That is what we intend to test. It is to that great effort my colleagues have pledged their lives. I have pledged mine to another. I tell you, Dad, that the sweeping and garnishing isn't sufficient. That is only the moral side of the campaign that lies before us, and without it the other side can never be achieved. But all my future is to be given up to the material security side of the problem. It may be only my dreaming, but I seem to see a terrible threat sweeping up over the eastern horizon. A threat so appalling for us as to make the late war almost insignificant. Some day, if you have the patience to listen to a dreamer, I will tell you of the dread that persistently haunts me. Meanwhile we have that—breathing space."
Without troubling himself to get a hat Ruxton Farlow passed through the entrance hall, out into the brilliant, warm summer night, and strode on towards his destiny.
CHAPTER II
A STRANGE MEETING
The peace of the night knocked vainly at the heart of the man as he moved along over the grass-grown cart track, which skirted those fields abutting on the pathway marking the broken line of the lofty Yorkshire cliffs.
The warmth of the July air left him utterly forgetful of the light evening clothes in which he was clad, just as the grass-grown track failed to remind him that the shoes he wore had never been intended for country rambles. The soft sea breeze fanned his cheeks, and the bracing air added vigor of body if it left his mental feelings wholly uninspired.
For the time, at least, Ruxton Farlow was living within himself. His mental digestion was devouring hungrily of that force which had come to make his contemporaries realize that here was a man of that unusual calibre which must ultimately make him a leader of men in whatever walk of life he chose for that strenuous journey.
The full moon, shedding a ghostly glory on every hand, yielded him the necessary guidance for his footsteps. It served his purpose, but its beauty for once left him unimpressed. The diamond-studded sky suggested no jewel-bedecked cloak of mysterious night as at other times it was wont to appeal. All romance was dead for the time, as though the shutter of his mental camera had been closed with a slam for the development of the plates within which held those living, grim pictures of the life he felt himself surrounded by on every hand.
He passed the last stile and faced the open sea. That smooth limitless expanse, sighing and restless, as it gently rocked its bosom like some aged crone nursing the infant she was too old to bear herself. He flung himself full length upon a rustling bed of heather. His head was towards the sea, and craning over the very edge of the dizzy cliff. There was no thought in his mind of the dangerous proximity. He had known these