r."

"I cannot think about those things to-day," she replied. "You may take
it that I am tired and that you had business. You know my address. May I
be favoured with yours?"

He handed her a card and scribbled a telephone number upon it. They were
in the station now, and their baggage in the hands of separate porters.
She walked slowly down the platform by his side.

"Will you allow me to say," he ventured, "how sorry I am--for all this?"

The slight uncertainty of his speech pleased her. She looked up at him
with infinite regret. As they neared the barrier, she held out her hand.

"I, too, am more sorry than I can tell you;" she said a little
tremulously. "Whatever may come, that is how I feel myself. I am sorry."

They separated almost upon the words. Catherine was accosted by a man
at whom Julian glanced for a moment in surprise, a man whose dress and
bearing, confident though it was, clearly indicated some other status in
life. He glanced at Julian with displeasure, a displeasure which seemed
to have something of jealousy in its composition. Then he grasped
Catherine warmly by the hand.

"Welcome back to London, Miss Abbeway! Your news?"

Her reply was inaudible. Julian quickened his pace and passed out of the
station ahead of them.

CHAPTER X

The Bishop and the Prime Minister met, one afternoon a few days later,
at the corner of Horse Guards Avenue. The latter was looking brown and
well, distinctly the better for his brief holiday. The Bishop, on the
contrary, was pale and appeared harassed. They shook hands and exchanged
for a moment the usual inanities.

"Tell me, Mr. Stenson," the Bishop asked earnestly, "what is the meaning
of all this Press talk, about peace next month? I have heard a hint that
it was inspired."

"You are wrong," was the firm reply. "I have sent my private secretary
around to a few of the newspapers this morning. It just happens to be
the sensation, of the moment, and it's fed all the time from the other
side."

"There is nothing in it, then, really?"

"Nothing whatever. Believe me, Bishop--and there is no one feeling the
strain more than I am--the time has not yet come for peace."

"You politicians!" the Bishop sighed. "Do you sometimes forget, I
wonder, that even the pawns you move are human?"

"I can honestly say that I, at any rate, have never forgotten it," Mr.
Stenson answered gravely. "There isn't a man in my Government who has
a single personal feeling in f