errible by reason of its blood-soaked
trenches, its innumerable shallow graves, and its charred remains of
once prosperous towns. Hundreds of ruined farmers and small landholders
were working as navvies at bridge and road and railway repairs.

A great many people had been ruined during those few nightmare days of
the invasion, and every man in England was burdened now with a scale of
taxation never before known in the country. But business had resumed its
sway, and London looked very much as ever. The need there was for a
general making good, from London to the Wash, provided a great deal of
employment, and the Government had taken such steps as it could to make
credit easy. But Consols were still as low as sixty-eight; prices had
not yet fallen to the normal level, and money was everywhere scarce.

In the middle afternoon I set out for South Kensington to see Constance
Grey, to whom I had written only once during my absence, and then only
to tell her of my mother's death. She had replied by telegraph, a
message of warm and friendly sympathy. I knew well that she was always
busy, and, like most moderns who have written professionally, I suppose
we were both bad correspondents. Now there was much of which I wanted to
talk with Constance, and it was with a feeling of sharp disappointment
that I learned from the servant at the flat that she was not at home.
Mrs. Van Homrey was in, however, and in a few moments I was with her in
the little drawing-room where I had passed the night of London's
exhausted sleep on Black Saturday.

"Yes, you have just missed my niece," said Mrs. Van Homrey, after a
kindly reference to the strip of crepe on my arm. "She has gone in to
Victoria Street to a 'conference of the powers' of John Crondall's
convening. Oh, didn't you know he was here again? Yes, he arrived last
week, and, as usual, is up to his neck in affairs already, and Constance
with him. I verily believe that child has discovered the secret of
perpetual motion."

At first mention of John Crondall's name my heart had warmed to its
recollection of the man, and a pleasurable thought of meeting him again.
And immediately then the warm feeling had been penetrated by a vague
sense of disquiet, when Mrs. Van Homrey spoke of his affairs--"and
Constance with him." But I was not then conscious of the meaning of my
momentary discomfort, though, both then and afterwards, I read emphasis
and meaning into Mrs. Van Homrey's coupling of the two