He felt extremely uneasy, but for another hour or so was ashamed to act.  Then be went to the tube and asked another question or two, but the servant had no idea of Mabel’s movements; it might be she had gone to the church; sometimes she did at this hour.  He sent the woman off to see, and himself sat down again in the window-seat of his wife’s room, staring out disconsolately at the wide array of roofs in the golden sunset light, that seemed to his eyes to be strangely beautiful this evening.  The sky was not that pure gold which it had been every night during this last week; there was a touch of rose in it, and this extended across the entire vault so far as he could see from west to east.  He reflected on what he had lately read in an old book to the effect that the abolition of smoke had certainly changed evening colours for the worse....  There had been a couple of severe earthquakes, too, in America—­he wondered whether there was any connection....  Then his thoughts flew back to Mabel....

It was about ten minutes before he heard her footstep on the stairs, and as he stood up she came in.

There was something in her face that told him that she knew everything, and his heart sickened at her pale rigidity.  There was no fury there—­nothing but white, hopeless despair, and an immense determination.  Her lips showed a straight line, and her eyes, beneath her white summer hat, seemed contracted to pinpricks.  She stood there, closing the door mechanically behind her, and made no further movement towards him.

“Is it true?” she said.

Oliver drew one steady breath, and sat down again.

“Is what true, my dear?”

“Is it true,” she said again, “that all are to be questioned as to whether they believe in God, and to be killed if they confess it?”

Oliver licked his dry lips.

“You put it very harshly,” he said.  “The question is, whether the world has a right—–­”

She made a sharp movement with her head.

“It is true then.  And you signed it?”

“My dear, I beg you not to make a scene.  I am tired out.  And I will not answer that until you have heard what I have to say.”

“Say it, then.”

“Sit down, then.”

She shook her head.

“Very well, then....  Well, this is the point.  The world is one now, not many.  Individualism is dead.  It died when Felsenburgh became President of the World.  You surely see that absolutely new conditions prevail now—­there has never been anything like it before.  You know all this as well as I do.”

Again came that jerk of impatience.