st, and drank the health of the
Future in some of his oldest port. Only when we had drawn up to the
blazing wood fire in that softly lighted room, with our glasses beside
us and two Airedales asleep at our feet, did he come round to his hobby.

"What do you think?" he said, suddenly leaning towards the flames, "some
of these blazing sentimentalists want to release our Huns. But I've put
my foot on it; they won't get free till they're out of this country and
back in their precious Germany." And I saw the familiar spark and
smoulder in his eyes.

"Harburn," I said, moved by an impulse which I couldn't resist, "I
think you ought to take a pill."

He stared at me.

"This way madness lies," I went on. "Hate is a damned insidious disease;
men's souls can't stand very much of it without going pop. You want
purging."

He laughed.

"Hate! I thrive on it. The more I hate the brutes, the better I feel.
Here's to the death of every cursed Hun!"

I looked at him steadily. "I often think," I said, "that there could
have been no more unhappy men on earth than Cromwell's Ironsides, or the
red revolutionaries in France, when their work was over and done with."

"What's that to do with me?" he said, amazed.

"They too smote out of sheer hate, and came to an end of their smiting.
When a man's occupation's gone----"

"You're drivelling!" he said sharply.

"Far from it," I answered, nettled. "Yours is a curious case, Harburn.
Most of our professional Hun-haters have found it a good stunt, or are
merely weak sentimentalists; they can drop it easily enough when it
ceases to be a good stunt, or a parrot's war-cry. You can't; with you
it's mania, religion. When the tide ebbs and leaves you high and
dry----"

He struck his fist on the arm of his chair, upsetting his glass and
awakening the Airedale at his feet.

"I won't let it ebb," he said; "I'm going on with this--Mark me!"

"Remember Canute!" I muttered. "May I have some more port?" I had got up
to fill my glass when I saw to my astonishment that a woman was standing
in the long window which opened on to the verandah. She had evidently
only just come in, for she was still holding the curtain in her hand. It
was Mrs. Holsteig, with her fine grey hair blown about her face, looking
strange and almost ghostly in a grey gown. Harburn had not seen her, so
I went quickly towards her, hoping to get her to go out again as
silently, and speak to me on the verandah; but she held up he