Maxendorf was unconscious.  Maraton suddenly threw him away.  Then he left the room, rang for the lift and made his way once more out into the street.  Piccadilly was a shadowy wilderness.  St. James’s Street was thronged with soldiers marching into the Park.  Maraton pursued his way steadily into Pall Mall and Downing Street.  Even here there were very few people, and the front of Mr. Foley’s house was almost deserted, save for one or two curious loiterers and a couple of policemen.  Maraton rang the bell and found no trouble in obtaining admittance.  The butler, however, shook his head when asked if Mr. Foley was at home.

“Mr. Foley is at the War Office, sir,” he announced.  “We cannot tell what time to expect him.”

“I shall wait,” Maraton replied.  “My business is of urgent importance.”

The butler made no difficulty.  He recognised Maraton as a guest of the house and he showed him into the smaller library, which was generally used as a waiting-room for more important visitors.  It was the room in which Maraton had had his first conversation with Mr. Foley.  He looked around him with faint, half painful curiosity.  If was like a place which he had known well in some other life.  It seemed impossible to believe that he was the same man, or that this was the same room.  Yet it was barely four months ago!  Too restless to sit still, he walked up and down the apartment with quick, unsteady footsteps.  Then suddenly the door opened.  Elisabeth appeared.  She recognised Maraton and started.  She looked at him with a fixed, incredulous stare.

“You?” she exclaimed.  “You here?  What do you want?”

“Your uncle,” he answered.  “How long will he be?”

She closed the door behind her with trembling fingers.  Then she came further into the room and confronted him.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.  “To gloat over your work?”

“To undo it, if I can,” he replied quickly,—­“a part of it, at any rate.  I fell into a trap—­Selingman and I. I’ve a way out, if there’s time.  I want your uncle.”

“You mean it?” she begged feverishly, her face lightening.  “Oh, don’t raise our hopes again just to disappoint us!”

“I mean it,” he reiterated.  “I want your uncle.  With his help, if he has the courage, if he dare face the inevitable, I’ll break the railway strike to-night and the coal strike to-morrow.”

She sat down suddenly.  She, too, had changed during the last few months.  Her face was thinner; there were lines under her eyes.  She had lost something of the fresh, delicate splendour of youth which had made her seem so dazzling.

“I can’t believe that you are in earnest,” she faltered.

“There isn’t any doubt about it,” he assured her.  “Send round and hurry your uncle.”

She moved to the writing-table and wrote a few lines hastily.  Then she rang the bell and gave them to a servant.  She was still without a vestige of colour.