“You see that farm-house down there on the right?” he said to Helena as they started again.  “We’ll stop there.”

They ran down the long slope to the town, the smoke carried towards them by a westerly wind beginning to beat in their faces,—­the roar of the great bonfire in their ears.

Helena drew up at the entrance of a short lane leading to a farm on the outskirts of the small country town—­the centre of an active furniture-making industry, for which the material lay handy in the large beechwoods which covered the districts round it.  The people of the farm were all standing outside the house-door, watching the fire and talking.

“You’re going to leave me here?” said Helena wistfully, looking at Buntingford.

“Please.  You’ve brought us splendidly!  I’ll send Geoffrey back to you as soon as possible, with instructions.”

She drove the car up to the farm.  An elderly man came forward with whom Buntingford made arrangements.  The car was to be locked up.  “And you’ll take care of the lady, till I send?”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

“I’ll come back to you, as soon as I can,” said French to Helena.  “Don’t be anxious about us.  We shall get into the market-hall by a back way and find out what’s going on.  They’ve probably got the hose on by now.  Nothing like a hose-pipe for this kind of thing!  Congratters on a splendid bit of driving!”

“Hear, hear,” said Buntingford.

They went off, and Helena was left alone with the farm people, who made much of her, and poured into her ears more or less coherent accounts of the rioting and its causes.  A few discontented soldiers, an unpopular factory manager, and a badly-handled strike:—­the tale was a common one throughout England at the moment, and behind and beneath the surface events lay the heaving of that “tide in the affairs of men,” a tide of change, of restlessness, of revolt, set in motion by the great war.  Helena paced up and down the orchard slope behind the house, watching the conflagration which was beginning to die down, startled every now and then by what seemed to be the sound of shots, and once by the rush past of a squadron of mounted police coming evidently from the big country town some ten miles away.  Hunger asserted itself, and she made a raid on the hamper in the car, sharing some of its contents with the black-eyed children of the farm.  Every now and then news came from persons passing along the road, and for a time things seemed to be mending.  The police were getting the upper hand; the Mayor had made a plucky speech to the crowd in the market-place, with good results; the rioters were wavering; and the soldiers had been stopped by telephone.  Then following hard on the last rumour came a sudden rush of worse news.  A policeman had been killed—­two injured—­the rioters had gained a footing in the market-hall, and driven out both the police and the specials—­and after all, the soldiers had been sent for.