Thus this young Irishman's strong religious convictions, which did him credit, betrayed him to his doom. But, incomprehensibly, doom in the sense (whatever sense that was) in which it had overtaken his fellow-delegates, was after all averted. He did not disappear into silence as they had. On the contrary, the kindly old woman who had rushed from the front window and bent over him as he lay unconscious on the stair-head, saw him presently open his eyes and stir, and heard the faint, bewildered murmur of “to hell with the Pope,” which is what Orangemen say mechanically when they come to, as others may say, “Where am I?”

Very soon he sat up, dizzily.

“I was chloroformed,” he said, “by some damned Republican. Where is the chap? Don't let him make off.”

But he was informed that this person had already disappeared. When the old lady of the house, hearing him fall, had come out and found him, there had been no trace of either his assaulter or of the chloroformed towel. The kindly old lady was almost inclined to think that monsieur must have fainted, and fancied the Republican, the chloroform, and the attack.

Fergus Macdermott, who never either fainted or fancied, assured her that this was by no means the case.

“It's part, no doubt,” he said, “of this Sinn Fein plot against delegates. Why they didn't put it through in my case I can't say. I suppose they heard you coming.... But what on earth did they mean to do with me? Now, madame, we must promptly descend and make inquiries as to who was seen to leave your front door just now. There is no time to be lost.... Only I feel so infernally giddy....”

The inquiries he made resulted in little. Some standers-by had seen two men leave the house a few minutes since, but had observed nothing, neither what they were like nor where they went. No, it had not been observed that they were of South Irish aspect.

It seemed hopeless to track them. The old lady said that she lived there alone with her husband, above the shop; but that, of course, any scoundrel might stray into it while the door stood open, and lurk in ambush.

“How did they guess that the old lady was going to invite me in?” Macdermott wondered. “If they did guess, that is, and if it was really part of the anti-delegate campaign. Of course, if not, they may merely have guessed she should ask some one (it may be her habit), and hidden in ambush to rob whoever it might be. But they didn't rob me.... It could be that this good old lady was in the plot herself, no less, for all she speaks so civil. But who is to prove that, I ask you? It's queer and strange....”

Thus pondering, Fergus Macdermott took a cab and drove to the hotel where he was to dine with Garth, the representative of the Morning Post. He would be doing Garth a good turn to let him get in with the tale before the other papers; he would be able to wire it home straight away. The Morning Post deserved that: a sound paper it was, and at times the only one in England that got hold of and stated the Truth. This attack on Macdermott proved conclusively to his mind, what he and the Morning Post had from the first suspected and said, that the Irish Republicans were at the back of the whole business, helped, as usual, by German and Bolshevik money.

“Ah, this proves it,” said Macdermott, his blue eyes very bright in his white face as he drove along.

As to the procession, he had forgotten all about it.

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