Page:The Prime Minister by Hall Caine.djvu/74

50  Hush! Leave this to me, auntie!

 Yes, leave it to her, Marie. Margaret knows what she's doing.  [Drawing Freda back into her chair, speaking rapidly, passionately.] Listen, dear. Sir Robert Temple is not the good man you suppose him to be, but a cruel tyrant, who persuaded the English to begin this wicked war, and has been the real cause of untold suffering among our people. My father—Otto's and mine—I told you in my letters our poor father was dead, but I didn't tell you how he died. He died in prison. Yes, in prison—killed, murdered, for doing what any good man would have done for his Fatherland. Sir Robert Temple did that, too. And now he is going to shut us all up in internment camps—behind barbed wire—men and women as well, perhaps—and treat us like lepers and dogs. Yet we can't retaliate. He is so far above us that we can't reach him to punish him. But if only somebody could get close to him—some woman by preference—into his house, as governess or secretary—she might find a way—who knows?—to put an end to his tyrannies. Let me go in your place, dear, let me, let me.

 [Troubled.] But think—think of the risk.

 There would be no risk for you, and I can take care of myself, dear.