Again Percy was conscious of that slight touch of fear at the mention of that name.

“I understand there is to be peace,” he said.

The girl rose and her husband with her.

“Yes,” she said, almost compassionately, “there is to be peace.  Peace at last.” (She moved half a step towards him, and her face glowed like a rose of fire.  Her hand rose a little.) “Go back to London, Father Franklin, and use your eyes.  You will see him, I dare say, and you will see more besides.” (Her voice began to vibrate.) “And you will understand, perhaps, why we have treated you like this—­why we are no longer afraid of you—­why we are willing that my mother should do its she pleases.  Oh! you will understand, Father Franklin if not to-night, to-morrow; or if not to-morrow, at least in a very short time.”

“Mabel!” cried her husband.

The girl wheeled, and threw her arms round him, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Oh!  I am not ashamed, Oliver, my dear.  Let him go and see for himself.  Good-night, Father Franklin.”

As he went towards the door, hearing the ping of the bell that some one touched in the room behind him, he turned once more, dazed and bewildered; and there were the two, husband and wife, standing in the soft, sunny light, as if transfigured.  The girl had her arm round the man’s shoulder, and stood upright and radiant as a pillar of fire; and even on the man’s face there was no anger now—­nothing but an almost supernatural pride and confidence.  They were both smiling.

Then Percy passed out into the soft, summer night.

II

Percy understood nothing except that he was afraid, as he sat in the crowded car that whirled him up to London.  He scarcely even heard the talk round him, although it was loud and continuous; and what he heard meant little to him.  He understood only that there had been strange scenes, that London was said to have gone suddenly mad, that Felsenburgh had spoken that night in Paul’s House.

He was afraid at the way in which be had been treated, and he asked himself dully again and again what it was that had inspired that treatment; it seemed that he bad been in the presence of the supernatural; he was conscious of shivering a little, and of the symptoms of an intolerable sleepiness.  It was scarcely strange to him that he should be sitting in a crowded car at two o’clock of a summer dawn.

Thrice the car stopped, and he stared out at the signs of confusion that were everywhere; at the figures that ran in the twilight between the tracks, at a couple of wrecked carriages, a tumble of tarpaulins; he listened mechanically to the hoots and cries that sounded everywhere.

As he stepped out at last on to the platform, he found it very much as he had left it two hours before.  There was the same desperate rush as the car discharged its load, the same dead body beneath the seat; and above all, as he ran helplessly behind the crowd, scarcely knowing whither he ran or why, above him burned the same stupendous message beneath the clock.  Then he found himself in the lift, and a minute later he was out on the steps behind the station.