Chapter III
THE great log–fire in the outer hall threw strange shadows upon the walls, and made the lion heads grin like outlandish ogres. Lamps were lit on the email tables, and the company settled in deep chairs, within the glow of the fire but outside its disquieting warmth.
Lord Appin, who had seated himself near the centre of the circle, produced a little volume in which newspaper extracts were pasted.
"I am, as you know," he said, "a connoisseur of public opinion. In my belief no statesman can afford to neglect the ingenuous manifestations of it which from time to time appear in its popular organs. There you will find the will of certain classes of the community stated, no doubt with imperfect grammar and more imperfect taste, but still with all the frankness and confusion of the
