Page:The council of seven.djvu/196

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for the rest of her days; and Helen and he could take a small house in London. At the start, it was true, the house in London would have to be a very modest affair. He had a few hundred a year of his own, plus a few hundred more as a member of parliament; but now that the U. P. had raised the fiery cross, that source of revenue would probably disappear at the next general election, which by all the portents could not be long delayed. When his mother died he would have Wyndham and her entire income, which, however, at the present time was barely sufficient to keep up an old and much depreciated property.

It would be foolish to shirk the fact that for the time being they would have to pare cheese. They would find themselves with their backs to the wall, with calumny and misrepresentation on every hand; but let them stand shoulder to shoulder, their colors nailed to the mast. No matter what happened they would go down fighting.

The light in his eyes decided Helen. She, too, belonged to a free people.

"Yes," she said, "we'll stand or fall together."

He grasped, in his boy's way, the hand of a good comrade. "We'll break the International Newspaper Ring, or it shall break us."

She was quite ready to buckle on his armor. "Government by newspaper must end—if civilization is to go on. One has always smiled at the notion that Saul Hartz can put in any government he chooses and turn