qui vive_, expecting a French landing on the coast--that
beautiful coast which was as lonely now as it had been then, and which,
thanks to motors and splendid roads, seemed much nearer now than then.
England had gone on much as usual a hundred years ago. Mrs. Otway even
reminded herself that Jane Austen, during those years of stress and
danger, had been writing her delightful, her humorous, her placid
studies of life as though there were no war!

And then, perhaps because of her invocation of that dear, shrewd
mistress of the average British human heart, Mrs. Otway, feeling far
more comfortable than she had yet felt since her talk with Miss Forsyth,
began retracing her steps towards the cathedral.

She was glad to know that the Dean was going to give a little address
this morning. It was sure to be kindly, wise, benignant--for he was
himself all these three things. Many delightful German thinkers,
theologians and professors, came and went to the Deanery, and Mrs. Otway
was always asked to meet these distinguished folk, partly because of her
excellent knowledge of German, and also because the Dean knew that, like
himself, she loved Germany.

And now she turned sick at heart, as she suddenly realised that for a
time, at any rate, these pleasant meetings would take place no more. But
soon--or so she hoped with all her soul--this strange unnatural war
would be over. Even now the bubble of Prussian militarism was pricked,
for the German Army was not doing well at Liege. During the last two or
three days she had read the news with increasing amazement and--but she
hardly admitted it to herself--with dismay. She did not like to think of
Germans breaking and running away! It had hurt her, made her angry, to
hear the exultation with which some of her neighbours had spoken of the
news. It was all very well to praise the gallant little Belgians, but
why should that be done at the expense of the Germans?

Mrs. Otway suddenly told herself that she hoped Major Guthrie would not
be at the cathedral this morning. Considering that they disagreed about
almost everything, it was odd what friends he and she were! But about
Germany they had never agreed, and that was the more strange inasmuch as
Major Guthrie had spent quite a long time in Stuttgart. He thought the
Germans of to-day entirely unlike the Germans of the past. He honestly
believed them to be unprincipled, untrustworthy, and unscrupulous; and,
strangest thing of all--or so Mr