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popular government has become absolutely desperate.

"Some strong group must take over affairs. That is plain to you, is it not?"

He was glancing from Helen Lacey across Bane to me and back again; his eyes rested on her when he stopped so she made reply to him, with quivering lips: "That is what you are planning to do?"

"He did not tell you," said Cawder kindly, "even that?" He glanced at Bane not so patiently; and I better understood our situation. Because I was one of a pair of pilots potentially useful to him, this crippled man had sent for me. He had not sent for her; Bane had brought her because he could not himself present the plan to her. He preferred to have Cawder do it.