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commencement. His wife had left off smoking, so strongly was her interest aroused, so vast was the vision that opened before her as she followed out George’s train of thought.

She murmured, from time to time: “Yes, yes; that is very good. That is capital. That is very clever.”

And when he had finished speaking in turn, she said: “Now let us write.”

But he always found it hard to make a start, and with difficulty sought his expressions. Then she came gently, and, leaning over his shoulder, began to whisper sentences in his ear. From time to time she would hesitate, and ask: “Is that what you want to say?”

He answered: “Yes, exactly.”

She had piercing shafts, the poisoned shafts of a woman, to wound the head of the Cabinet, and she blended jests about his face with others respecting his policy in a curious fashion, that made one laugh, and, at the same time, impressed one by their truth of observation.

Du Roy from time to time added a few lines which widened and strengthened the range of attack. He understood, too, the art of perfidious insinuation, which he had learned in sharpening up his “Echoes”; and when a fact put forward as certain by Madeleine appeared doubtful or compromising, he excelled in allowing it to be divined and in impressing it upon the mind more strongly than if he had affirmed it. When their article was finished, George read it aloud. They both thought it excellent, and smiled, delighted and surprised, as if they had just mutually revealed themselves to one another. They gazed into the depths of one another’s eyes with yearnings of love and admiration, and they embraced one another with an ardor communicated from their minds to their bodies.