IONS OF THE PAST

17. YVA EXPLAINS

18. THE ACCIDENT

19. THE PROPOSALS OF BASTIN AND BICKLEY

20. ORO AND ARBUTHNOT TRAVEL BY NIGHT

21. LOVE'S ETERNAL ALTAR

22. THE COMMAND

23. IN THE TEMPLE OF FATE

24. THE CHARIOT OF THE PIT

25. SACRIFICE

26. TOMMY

27. BASTIN DISCOVERS A RESEMBLANCE

28. NOTE BY J. R. BICKLEY, M.R.C.S.

WHEN THE WORLD SHOOK

Chapter I. Arbuthnot Describes Himself

I suppose that I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, should begin this history in
which Destiny has caused me to play so prominent a part, with some short
account of myself and of my circumstances.

I was born forty years ago in this very Devonshire village in which I
write, but not in the same house. Now I live in the Priory, an ancient
place and a fine one in its way, with its panelled rooms, its beautiful
gardens where, in this mild climate, in addition to our own, flourish
so many plants which one would only expect to find in countries that
lie nearer to the sun, and its green, undulating park studded with great
timber trees. The view, too, is perfect; behind and around the rich
Devonshire landscape with its hills and valleys and its scarped faces
of red sandstone, and at a distance in front, the sea. There are little
towns quite near too, that live for the most part on visitors, but these
are so hidden away by the contours of the ground that from the Priory
one cannot see them. Such is Fulcombe where I live, though for obvious
reasons I do not give it its real name.

Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child
I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place
with which our family is said to have some rather vague hereditary
connection. If so, it was severed in the Carolian times because my
ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.

My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a Scotswoman,
died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High Church for those
days he was not popular with the family that owned the Priory before me.
Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar person of the name of Enfield who had
made money in trade, almost persecuted him, as he was in a position to
do, being the local magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.

I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my mind that
one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a wild enough i