Out here in the fresh of the morning,--which ought by rights to have been full of sunshine and beauty, the cream of a summer day,--he could, as a rule, shake off the shadows and get a fresh grip on realities and himself. But the very weather was depressing. The year seemed already on the wane. There were fallen leaves on the lawn. The summer flowers were despondent. There was a touch of red in the Virginia creeper which covered the house. The roses wore a downcast look. The hollyhocks and sweet-peas showed signs of decrepitude. It seemed already Autumn, and the chill damp air made one think of coming Winter. And the unseasonal atmospheric conditions were remarkably akin to his personal feelings. For days he had had a sense of impending trouble in business matters, all the more irritating because so ill-defined and impalpable. Troubles that one could tackle in the open one faced as a matter of course, and got the better of as a matter of business. But this ‘something coming and no knowing what’ was very upsetting, and his brows knitted perplexedly as he paced to and fro, from the arch that led to the kitchen-garden to the arch that led to the front path, up which in due course Smith’s boy would come whistling with the world’s news and possibly something that might cast a light on his shadows. Mr Dare’s business was that of an import and export merchant, chiefly with the Continent, and his offices were in St Mary Axe. He had old connections all over Europe and was affiliated with the Paris firm of Leroux and Cie, Charles Leroux having married his sister. As a rule his affairs ran full and smooth, with no more than the to-be-expected little surface ruffles. But for some weeks past he had been acutely conscious of a disturbance in the commercial barometer, and so far he had failed to make out what it portended. Politically, both at home and abroad, matters seemed much as usual, always full of menacing possibilities, to which, however, since nothing came of them, one had grown somewhat calloused. The Irish brew indeed looked as if it might possibly boil over. That gun-running business was not at all to his mind. But he was inclined to think there was a good deal of bluff about it all. And the suffragettes were ramping about and making fools of themselves in their customary senseless fashion, and doing all the damage they possibly could to their own cause and to the nation at large.