ir. Thank 'ee, sir.'

Selwyn moved off into the network of shadows. Looking back once, he saw
the weather-beaten groom with hands on his hips, tilting himself to and
fro in benicotined enjoyment of some odd strain of philosophy. Good
heavens! was that the way men went to war,--as if it were a hunt with an
equal chance of being the hound or the hare? 'Sausage-eaters'--what a
phrase to describe those eagle-helmeted supermen of Prussia's cavalry!
And this little island of pipe-smoking, country-side philosophers and
pampered, sport-loving youth--this was the country, heart of a crumbling
empire, that had ordered the gray torrent of Germany to alter its course
and flow back to its own confines. It was absurd. It was grotesque. It
was a sporting thing to do, but would it mean the collapse of the
sprawling, disjointed British Empire, linked together by a flimsy
tradition of loyalty to the Crown?

Scotland would be faithful, not so much to England as to her own
instincts. Even if England were the heart of things, Scotland was the
brain, and more than any other part supplied the driving-power for the
wheels of empire. But what of rebellious Ireland and the distant
Dominions isolated by the seas? Would they seize this moment of
Britain's mad impetuosity and declare for their own independence? It was
the history of nations--and did not history repeat itself?

Canada, of course, would be governed in her actions by the mighty
neighbouring Republic. That was inevitable when the young Dominion's
life was so dominated by that of the United States. But what of the
others? . . .

Thus for half-an-hour queried the man from America. He was about to turn
into the house, when he glanced once more in the direction of the
stables. It was too dark to distinguish anything, but there was the glow
from Mathews's pipe as it faintly lit the surrounding darkness.

II.

Eleven o'clock.

'Austin.'

He had been sitting in the library talking to Lord Durwent, but the
latter had just left the room to answer a phone-call from London. Elise,
who had been playing the gramophone in the music-room, shut the
instrument off and hurried to the American's side.

'Yes, Elise?' He tried to rise, but she pressed him back and sat on the
arm of the huge chair, looking down at him with a face that was glowing
with excitement. Her eyes were like jewels of fate lit from within by
some magic flame, and a mutinous lock of hair fell on the side