his is London," to
the last strains of _God Save the Queen_. Although I was constantly
rasped by inactivity and by the slowness of the researchworkers to find
a weapon against the Grass, I was happy to be able to wait out this
terrible period in so ameliorative a spot.

True, our depots in the Arabian and Sahara deserts were unthreatened by
either the Grass or the horde, but I should have found it uncomfortable
indeed to have lived in either place. In Hampshire or London I felt
myself the center of what was left of the world, ready to jump into
action the moment the great discovery was finally made and the Grass
began to recede.

Preblesham, my right hand, flew weekly to Africa and Asia Minor, weeding
out those workers who threatened to become useless to us because of
their reaction to the isolated and monotonous conditions at the depots;
keeping the heavily armed guards about our closed continental properties
alert and seeing our curtailed activities in Great Britain were
judiciously profitable. This period of quiescence suited his talents
perfectly, for it required of him little imagination, but great industry
and force.

I had noticed for some time a slight air of preoccupation and constraint
in his demeanor during his reports to me, but I put it down to his
engrossment with our affairs and resolved to make him take an extended
vacation as soon as he could be spared, never dreaming of disloyalty
from him.

I was shocked, then, and deeply wounded when at the close of one of our
conferences he announced, "Mr Weener, I'm leaving you."

I begged him to tell me what was wrong, what had caused him to come to
this decision. I knew, I said, that he was overworked and offered him
the badly needed vacation. He shook his head.

"It aint that. Overwork! I don't believe there is such a thing. At least
Ive never suffered from it. No, Mr Weener, my trouble is something no
amount of vacations can help, because I can't get away from a Voice."

"Voice, Tony?" Hallucinations were certainly a symptom of overwork. I
began mentally recalling names of prominent psychiatrists.

"A Voice within," he repeated firmly. "I am a sinful man, a miserable
backslider. Maybe Brother Paul was not treading a true path; I doubt if
he was or I would not have been led aside from following him so easily;
but when I was doing his work I was at least trying to do the will of
God and not the will of another man no better--spiritually, you
understand,