“I always was a one for cheerful colours,” explained Mrs. Phillips. Suddenly he broke off. “What a fool I’m making of myself,” he said. “I always was a dreamer.”!

It was Carleton of the Daily Dispatch group who had first divined her possibilities. With a swift glance on his way through, he had picked her out from a line of depressed-looking men and women ranged against the wall of the dark entrance passage; and with a snap of his fingers had beckoned to her to follow him. Striding in front of her up to his room, he had pointed to a chair and had left her sitting there for three-quarters of an hour, while he held discussion with a stream of subordinates, managers and editors of departments, who entered and departed one after another, evidently in pre-arranged order. All of them spoke rapidly, without ever digressing by a single word from the point, giving her the impression of their speeches having been rehearsed beforehand. She looked up Phillips at the House, and gave him Greyson’s message. He had just returned from Folkestone, and was worried.

“I like the articles you are writing on the History of Superstition. Quite illuminating,” remarked Mr. Simson. Arthur had not been home since the beginning of the war. Twice he had written them to expect him, but the little fleet of mine sweepers had been hard pressed, and on both occasions his leave had been stopped at the last moment. One afternoon he turned up unexpectedly at the hospital. It was a few weeks after the Conscription Act had been passed. Mary Stopperton was afraid he never had, in spite of its being so near. “And yet he was a dear good Christian—in his way,” Mary Stopperton felt sure.