I like to think also that by the present year of grace—­1920—­the Rossiters will have become convinced that No. 1 Park Crescent, even with the Zoo and the Royal Botanic Gardens close by and the ornamental garden of Regent’s Park in between, does not satisfy all their needs and ambitions:  that they will have resolved even before this year began—­to supplement it by a home in the country for week-ends, for summer visits, and finally for rest in their old age.  That for this purpose they will acquire some ideal Grange or Priory, or ample farmstead near Petworth and the Armstrongs’ home, over against the South Downs, and near the river Rother; that it shall be in no mere suburb of Petworth but in a stately little village with its own character and history going back to Roman times and a church with a Saxon body and a Norman chancel.  And that in the ideal churchyard of this enviable church with ancient yews and 18th century tomb-stones, and old, old benches in the sunshine for the grandfathers and loafers of the village to sit on and smoke of a Sabbath morning, a place shall be found for the bones of Bertie Adams; reverently brought over from the grassy amphitheatre of the Tir National to repose in this churchyard of West Sussex which looks out over one of the finest cricket pitches in the county.  If, then, there is any lien between the mouldering fragments of our bodies and the inexplicable personality which has been generated in the living brain, the former office boy of Fraser and Warren will know that he is always present in the memory of Vivien Rossiter, that she has placed the few physical fragments still representing him in such a setting as would have delighted his honest, simple nature in his lifetime.  He would also know that his children are now hers and her husband’s; that his Nance very rightly married the excellent butler, Jenkins, with whom he had discussed many a cricket score; and that Love, after all, is stronger than Death.

THE END