“Five hundred pounds for this particular job. Of course he has a salary as well.”

“The greedy rogue. They are useful, these traitors, but I grudge them their blood money.”

“I grudge Altamont nothing. He is a wonderful worker. If I pay him well, at least he delivers the goods, to use his own phrase. Besides he is not a traitor. I assure you that our most pan-Germanic Junker is a sucking dove in his feelings towards England as compared with a real bitter Irish-American.”

“Oh, an Irish-American?”

“If you heard him talk you would not doubt it. Sometimes I assure you I can hardly understand him. He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king. Must you really go? He may be here any moment.”

“No. I’m sorry, but I have already overstayed my time. We shall expect you early to-morrow, and when you get that signal book through the little door on the Duke of York’s steps you can put a triumphant finis to your record in England. What! Tokay!”

He indicated a heavily sealed dust-covered bottle which stood with two high glasses upon a salver.

“May I offer you a glass before your journey?”

“No, thanks. But it looks like revelry.”

“Altamont has a nice taste in wines, and he took a fancy to my Tokay. He is a touchy fellow and needs humouring in small things. I have to study him, I assure you.” They had strolled out on to the terrace again, and along it to the further end where at a touch from the Baron’s chauffeur the great car shivered and chuckled. “Those are the lights of Harwich, Harwich I suppose,” said the secretary, pulling on his dust coat. “How still and peaceful it all seems. There may be other lights within the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place! The heavens, too, may not be quite so peaceful if all that the good Zeppelin promises us comes true. By the way, who is that?”

Only one window showed a light behind them; in it there stood a lamp, and beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country cap. She was bending over her knitting and stopping occasionally to stroke a large black cat upon a stool beside her.

“That is Martha, the only servant I have left.”

The secretary chuckled.

“She might almost personify Britannia,” said he, “with her complete self-absorption and general air of comfortable somnolence. Well, au revoir, Von Bork!” With a final wave of his hand he sprang into the car, and a moment later the two golden cones from the headlights shot forward through the darkness. The secretary lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limousine, with his thoughts so full of the impending European tragedy that he hardly observed that as his car swung round the village street it nearly passed over a little Ford coming in the opposite direction.

Von Bork walked slowly back to the study when the last gleams of the motor lamps had faded into the distance. As he passed he observed that his old housekeeper had put out her lamp and retired. It was a new experience to him, the silence and darkness of his widespread house, for his family and household had been a large one. It was a relief to him, however, to think that they were all in safety and that, but for that one old woman who had lingered in the kitchen, he had the whole place to himself. There was a good deal of tidying up to do inside his study and he set himself to do it until his keen, handsome face was flushed with the heat of the burning papers. A leather valise stood beside his table, and into this he began to pack very neatly and systematically the precious contents of his safe. He had hardly got started with the work, however, when his quick ears caught the sound of a distant car. Instantly he gave an exclamation of satisfaction, strapped up the valise, shut the safe, locked it, and hurried out on to the terrace. He was just in time to see the lights of a small car come to a halt at the gate. A passenger sprang out of it and advanced swiftly towards him, while the chauffeur, a heavily built, elderly man with a gray moustache, settled down like one who resigns himself to a long vigil.

She wept a few bitter tears, and Connie wept more. It was a warm spring day, with a perfume of earth and of yellow flowers, many things rising to bud, and the garden still with the very sap of sunshine.

‘It must have been terrible for you!’ said Connie.

‘Oh, my Lady! I never realized at first. I could only say: Oh my lad, what did you want to leave me for!—That was all my cry. But somehow I felt he’d come back.’

‘But he DIDN’T want to leave you,’ said Connie.

‘Oh no, my Lady! That was only my silly cry. And I kept expecting him back. Especially at nights. I kept waking up thinking: Why he’s not in bed with me!—It was as if MY FEELINGS wouldn’t believe he’d gone. I just felt he’d HAVE to come back and lie against me, so I could feel him with me. That was all I wanted, to feel him there with me, warm. And it took me a thousand shocks before I knew he wouldn’t come back, it took me years.’

‘The touch of him,’ said Connie.

‘That’s it, my Lady, the touch of him! I’ve never got over it to this day, and never shall. And if there’s a heaven above, he’ll be there, and will lie up against me so I can sleep.’

Connie glanced at the handsome, brooding face in fear. Another passionate one out of Tevershall! The touch of him! For the bonds of love are ill to loose!

‘It’s terrible, once you’ve got a man into your blood!’ she said. ‘Oh, my Lady! And that’s what makes you feel so bitter. You feel folks WANTED him killed. You feel the pit fair WANTED to kill him. Oh, I felt, if it hadn’t been for the pit, an’ them as runs the pit, there’d have been no leaving me. But they all WANT to separate a woman and a man, if they’re together.’

‘If they’re physically together,’ said Connie.

‘That’s right, my Lady! There’s a lot of hard–hearted folks in the world. And every morning when he got up and went to th’ pit, I felt it was wrong, wrong. But what else could he do? What can a man do?’

A queer hate flared in the woman.

‘But can a touch last so long?’ Connie asked suddenly. ‘That you could feel him so long?’

‘Oh my Lady, what else is there to last? Children grows away from you. But the man, well! But even THAT they’d like to kill in you, the very thought of the touch of him. Even your own children! Ah well! We might have drifted apart, who knows. But the feeling’s something different. It’s ‘appen better never to care. But there, when I look at women who’s never really been warmed through by a man, well, they seem to me poor doolowls after all, no matter how they may dress up and gad. No, I’ll abide by my own. I’ve not much respect for people.’

Connie went to the wood directly after lunch. It was really a lovely day, the first dandelions making suns, the first daisies so white. The hazel thicket was a lace–work, of half–open leaves, and the last dusty perpendicular of the catkins. Yellow celandines now were in crowds, flat open, pressed back in urgency, and the yellow glitter of themselves. It was the yellow, the powerful yellow of early summer. And primroses were broad, and full of pale abandon, thick–clustered primroses no longer shy. The lush, dark green of hyacinths was a sea, with buds rising like pale corn, while in the riding the forget–me–nots were fluffing up, and columbines were unfolding their ink–purple ruches, and there were bits of blue bird’s eggshell under a bush. Everywhere the bud–knots and the leap of life!