Page:The council of seven.djvu/118



John Endor had arranged that after his meeting at Hellington he should go on to Wyndham, his mother's house, some twenty miles away in the neighboring county of Middleshire, and there spend the week-end. Helen had promised to join him on the Saturday. She had yet to make the acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth, but now that the Rubicon was as good as crossed, she was called upon to face the rather dreaded music of the maternal criticism.

As things turned out, this week-end plan chimed very well with the course of events. Thursday was the day of the Hellington meeting; it was also the day of Helen's powerfully disturbing talk with Saul Hartz. And at the breakfast table on Friday morning, when she opened her Planet prior to setting out for the Office, she received a further shock. Two heavy captions on the paper's front page at once caught her eye:

RIOT AT HELLINGTON M. P.'S MEETING BROKEN UP

It was no more than she expected. John had been