There was not much in that in itself, though Lois was an unusually level-headed girl and not likely to lay stress on imaginary things. But that, and the evasiveness, when it was not silence, of his German correspondents, and the non-arrival of his contracted-for supplies of beet-sugar, had set his mind running on possibilities from which it recoiled but could not shake itself entirely free. Presently, as he paced the well-defined track he had by this time made across the dewy lawn, he heard the rattle of the kitchen grate as heavy-handed Sarah lit the fire, and the gush of homely smoke from the chimney had in it a suggestion of breakfast that put some of his shadows to flight. Sarah and breakfast were substantial every-day facts before which the blue devils born of broken sleep temporarily withdrew. Then from behind Honor’s wide-open window and drawn curtains he heard her cheerful humming as she dressed. And then her curtains were switched aside with a strenuous rattle, and at sight of him she stuck out her head with a saucy, “Hello, Mr Father! Got the hump? What a beast of a day! I say,--you _are_ wearing a hole in that carpet. Doesn’t look much of a day for a tennis tournament, does it? Rotten! I just wish I had the making of this country’s weather; anyone who wished might make her----” Smith’s boy’s exuberant whistle sounded in the front garden, and Honor chimed in, “Good-bye, Piccadilly!”--as her father hastened to the gate to get his paper. Smith’s boy was just preparing to fold and hurl it at the porch--a thing he had been strictly forbidden to do, since on wet and windy days it resulted in an unreadable rag retrieved from various corners of the garden instead of a reputable news-sheet. At the unexpected appearance of Mr Dare in the archway, his merry pipe broke off short at the farewell to Leicester Square, and Honor’s clear voice round the corner carried them triumphantly to the conclusion that it was “a long long way to Tipperary,” without obbligato accompaniment. The boy grinned, and producing a less-folded paper from his sheaf, retired in good order through the further gate, and piped himself bravely up the Oakdene path next door, while Mr Dare shook the paper inside out and stood searching for anything that might in any way bear upon his puzzle. His anxious eye leaped at once to the summary of foreign news, and his lips tightened. “The Austrian Minister has been instructed to leave Belgrade unless the Servian Government complies with the Austrian demand by 6 p.m. this evening.” An ultimatum!... Bad!... Dangerous things, ultimatums! “It is stated that Russia has decided to intervene on behalf of Servia.”