'This is appalling,' Helena said, turning pale. 'I now understand why some women have such a horror of anything like political strife. I wonder if I should lose courage if someone in whom I was interested were in serious danger?'

'You would never lose your courage,' the Dictator said firmly. 'You would fear nothing so much as that those you cared for should not prove themselves equal to the duty imposed upon them.'

'I used to think so once,' she said. 'I begin to be afraid about myself now.'

'Well, in this case,' he interposed quickly, 'there does not seem to be any real apprehension of danger. I am afraid,' he added, with a certain bitterness, 'my enemies in Gloria do not regard me as so very formidable a personage as to make it worth their while to pay for the cost of my assassination. I don't fancy they are looking out for my speedy return to Gloria.'

'My father's news is different. He hears that your party is growing in Gloria every day, and that the people in power are making themselves every day more and more odious to the country.'

'That they are likely enough to do,' he said, with a bright look coming into his eyes, 'and that is one reason why I am quite determined not to precipitate matters. We can't afford to have revolution after revolution in a poor and struggling place like Gloria, and so I want these people to give the full measure of their incapacity and their baseness so that when they fall they may fall like Lucifer! Hamilton would be rather for rushing things—I am not.'

'Do you keep in touch with Gloria?' Helena asked almost timidly. She had lately grown rather shy of asking him questions on political matters, or of seeming to assume any right to be in his confidence. All the impulsive courage which she used to have in the days when their acquaintanceship was but new and slight seemed to have deserted her now that they were such close and recognised friends, and that random report occasionally gave them out as engaged lovers.

'Oh, yes,' he answered; 'I thought you knew—I fancied I had told you. I have constant information from friends on whom I can absolutely rely—in Gloria.'

'Do they know what your enemies are doing?'

'Yes, I should think they would get to know,' he said with a smile, 'as far as anything can be known.'