Werter Road had developed into the most celebrated thoroughfare in London.  Its photograph had appeared in scores of newspapers, with a cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice.  It was beset and infested by journalists of several nationalities from morn till night.  Cameras were as common in it as lamp-posts.  And a famous descriptive reporter of the Sunday News had got lodgings, at a high figure, exactly opposite No. 29.  Priam and Alice could do nothing without publicity.  And if it would be an exaggeration to assert, that evening papers appeared with Stop-press News:  “5.40.  Mrs. Leek went out shopping,” the exaggeration would not be very extravagant.  For a fortnight Priam had not been beyond the door during daylight.  It was Alice who, alarmed by Priam’s pallid cheeks and tightened nerves, had devised the plan of flight before the early summer dawn.

They reached East Putney Station, of which the gates were closed, the first workman’s train being not yet due.  And there they stood.  Not another human being was abroad.  Only the clock of St. Bude’s was faithfully awakening every soul within a radius of two hundred yards each quarter of an hour.  Then a porter came and opened the gate—­it was still exceedingly early—­and Priam booked for Waterloo in triumph.

“Oh,” cried Alice, as they mounted the stairs, “I quite forgot to draw up the blinds at the front of the house.”  And she stopped on the stairs.

“What did you want to draw up the blinds for?”

“If they’re down everybody will know instantly that we’ve gone.  Whereas if I—­”

She began to descend the stairs.

“Alice!” he said sharply, in a strange voice.  The muscles of his white face were drawn.

“What?”

“D—­n the blinds.  Come along, or upon my soul I’ll kill you.”

She realized that his nerves were in active insurrection, and that a mere nothing might bring about the fall of the government.

“Oh, very well!” She soothed him by her amiable obedience.

In a quarter of an hour they were safely lost in the wilderness of Waterloo, and the newspaper train bore them off to Bournemouth for a few days’ respite.

The Nation’s Curiosity

The interest of the United Kingdom in the unique case of Witt v.  Parfitts had already reached apparently the highest possible degree of intensity.  And there was reason for the kingdom’s passionate curiosity.  Whitney Witt, the plaintiff, had come over to England, with his eccentricities, his retinue, his extreme wealth and his failing eyesight, specially to fight Parfitts.  A half-pathetic figure, this white-haired man, once a connoisseur, who, from mere habit, continued to buy expensive pictures when he could no longer see them!  Whitney Witt was implacably set against Parfitts, because he was convinced that Mr. Oxford had sought to take advantage of his blindness.  There he was, conducting his action regardless of