Next day was Sunday.

The Colonel waited on the cliff for his paper, which brought the expected news. The die was cast. Germany had proclaimed martial law: she was already at war with Russia; France had mobilised.

"She\'s in it by now," he said to himself, as he walked across the golf-links towards Old Town.

The threat of danger was arousing in every individual a passionate need for communication, for re-assurance, for the warmth and comfort of the crowd. The herd, about to be attacked, was drawing together. Its out-posts were coming back at the trot, heads high, ears alert, snorting the alarm. Even the rogue and outcast were seeking re-admission and finding it amid acclamation. The main body were packing in a square, heads to the danger, nostrils quivering, antlers ready. An enemy was a-foot just beyond the sky-line. He has not declared himself as yet. But the wind betrayed his presence; and the secret stir of the disturbed and fearful wilderness was evidence enough that the Flesh-eater was abroad.

The turf sprang deliciously beneath the Colonel\'s feet. His youth seemed to have returned to him. He felt curiously braced and high of heart. Once he paused to look about him. Beyond the huge smooth bowl of the links with its neat greens and the little boxes of sand, its pleasant club-house, its evidence of a smooth and leisurely civilisation, Paradise rippled at the touch of a light-foot breeze. The Downs shimmered radiantly, their blemishes hidden in the mists of morning. On his right, beyond the ha-ha, the Duke\'s Lodge stood back in quiet dignity amid its beeches, typical of the England that was about to fade away like a cinema picture at a touch.

A lark sang. The Colonel lifted his face to the speck poised and thrilling in the blue.

What a day to go to war on! was his thought.

At the deserted club-house he dropped down into Lovers\' Lane and climbed up towards Old Town between high flint walls, ivy-covered.

As he emerged into Rectory Walk the Archdeacon was coming out of his gate. He was in his glory. His faded eyes glittered like those of an old duellist about to engage, and confident of his victim.

"I\'ve been waiting this day for forty-five yeahs," he announced.

The Colonel was aware of the legend that in 1870 the Archdeacon, then a lad at Cambridge, had only been restrained from fighting for his hero, the Emperor of the French, by a brutal father.

"It certainly looks as if you might get back a bit of your own," he said wearily. The other\'s dreadful exaltation served only to depress him. "Russia going at em one side and France the other."

"And England!" cried the Archdeacon.

"You think we shall go in?"

To the Colonel\'s horror, the Archdeacon took him by the arm.

"Can you doubt it?" he cried, rolling his eyes to see the impression he was making on the grocer in the door of the little corner-shop. "Are we rotten to the heart?"

They were walking down Church Street now, arm-in-arm, in the middle of the road.

"The pity of it is," he cried in his staccato voice, "we\'ve no Emperah to lead us to-day. Ah! there was a man!" He made a dramatic halt in mid-street. "Thank Gahd for Carson—what!" he whispered.

"And Smith," said the Colonel meekly. "Let us give thanks for Smith too—

Great in counsel, great in war,
Foremost Captain of our time,
Rich in saving common sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime."


They had reached the door of the parish-church.

The Archdeacon entered; and the Colonel turned with relief to greet Bobby Chislehurst. The lad\'s open face was unusually grave.

"There are sure to be pacifist demonstrations in London to-morrow," he began, blurting out his confidences like a a school-boy. "It\'s my day off. I shall go."

"Don\'t," said the Colonel.

"I must," the other replied. "It\'s all I can do."

"Bobby," said the Colonel grimly. "This is my advice. If you go up to London at all wire to Billy to come and meet you. He may be able to get an hour off, though I expect they\'re pretty busy at Aldershot." Billy was Bobby\'s twin-brother and in the Service.

Bobby winced.

"Yes," he said, "if Billy goes, Billy won\'t come back. I know Billy."

A few yards down the street the Colonel met Alf Caspar in the stream of ascending church-goers.

The little sidesman was dapper as usual: he wore a fawn coloured waist-coat, his moustache was waxed, his hair well-oiled; but his face was almost comically a-wry. He looked like the villain in a picture play about to burst into tears. Directly he saw the Colonel he roused to new and hectic life, crossing to him, entirely forgetful of their meeting on the previous evening.

"Is it war, sir?" he asked feverishly and with flickering eyes.

"If we are ever to hold up our heads and look the world in the face again," the Colonel answered.

"But what\'s it got to do with us?" Alf almost screamed. "Let em fight it out among themselves if they want to, I says. Stand aside—that\'s our part. That\'s the manly part. And then when it\'s all over slip in—"

"And collar the loot," suggested the Colonel.

"And arbitrate atween em. If we don\'t there\'ll be nobody to do it, only us. I don\'t say it\'ll be easy to make the sacrifice o standing aside when you want to help your friends, of course you do. But I say we ought to do it, and let em say what they like—if it\'s right and it is right. Take up the cross and face the shame—that\'s what I says. Where\'s the good o being Christians else, if you\'re going to throw it all overboard first time you\'re put to the test? We won\'t be the first, I says. What about the martyrs and them? Didn\'t they go through it? Not to talk o the expense! Can we afford it? Course we can\'t. Who could? Income tax at a shilling in the pound, and my petrol costing me another six-pence the can. And then ask us to sit down to a great war!"

He poured out his arguments as a volcano in eruption pours out lava.

The Colonel listened.

"You\'d better give your views to your Rector, I think," he remarked.

Alf\'s face turned ugly.

"One thing," he said, with an ominously vicious nod, "if there is war I resign my position in the League—that\'s straight."

"O dear!" said the Colonel, and he turned into the Manor-house.

Bess opened to him herself.

"Joe come?" he asked, knowing she was expecting her brother for the week-end.

"No. A post-card instead. We don\'t quite know where he is."

The Colonel nodded.

"Leave stopped. Sure to be."

Then Mrs. Trupp came down the stairs. About her was the purged and hallowed air of one who faces death without fear and yet without self-deception as to the price that must be paid. The Colonel felt he was standing upon holy ground.

Mrs. Trupp handed him a post-card............