broad line to Brighton. This Eastern news was
more disconcerting to her than she allowed her husband to see; yet it
seemed incredible that there could be any real danger of invasion. This
Western life was so sensible and peaceful; folks had their feet at last
upon the rock, and it was unthinkable that they could ever be forced
back on to the mud-flats: it was contrary to the whole law of
development. Yet she could not but recognise that catastrophe seemed one
of nature's methods....

She sat very quiet, glancing once or twice at the meagre little scrap
of news, and read the leading article upon it: that too seemed
significant of dismay. A couple of men were talking in the
half-compartment beyond on the same subject; one described the
Government engineering works that he had visited, the breathless haste
that dominated them; the other put in interrogations and questions.
There was not much comfort there. There were no windows through which
she could look; on the main lines the speed was too great for the eyes;
the long compartment flooded with soft light bounded her horizon. She
stared at the moulded white ceiling, the delicious oak-framed paintings,
the deep spring-seats, the mellow globes overhead that poured out
radiance, at a mother and child diagonally opposite her. Then the great
chord sounded; the faint vibration increased ever so slightly; and an
instant later the automatic doors ran back, and she stepped out on to
the platform of Brighton station.

As she went down the steps leading to the station square she noticed a
priest going before her. He seemed a very upright and sturdy old man,
for though his hair was white he walked steadily and strongly. At the
foot of the steps he stopped and half turned, and then, to her surprise,
she saw that his face was that of a young man, fine-featured and strong,
with black eyebrows and very bright grey eyes. Then she passed on and
began to cross the square in the direction of her aunt's house.

Then without the slightest warning, except one shrill hoot from
overhead, a number of things happened.

A great shadow whirled across the sunlight at her feet, a sound of
rending tore the air, and a noise like a giant's sigh; and, as she
stopped bewildered, with a noise like ten thousand smashed kettles, a
huge thing crashed on the rubber pavement before her, where it lay,
filling half the square, writhing long wings on its upper side that beat
and whirled like the flappers of some