THE bustle, the hurry, the excitement were again here; the grievance that a day contained, only twenty-four hours reconstituted itself; the feeling came once more that one was a person of some importance. But Erb, spite the old environments, found himself wanting in enthusiasm. He could not deny this, although for a time he tried to do so. Face to face with a situation that a month earlier would have aroused all his most aggressive instincts, he found he was quite unable to feel any excitement in the matter. The rebuff the men had given him he could not forget; the empty space that the dispute had made could not be easily bridged. Moreover, there were other matters which seemed larger and much more important than this to occupy his consideration. Rosalind brought Louisa back to town, the vacation being over, and Camberwell desiring to go on with its lessons in voice production, and Lady Frances, hearing of this from Alice, antedated her trip to the Continent, and, in her generous way, prepared to fly off with Louisa and Jessie, the maid; Louisa, dazed by the rapidity of events, said goodbye with apparent calm to her brother and her three most recent _fiancés_. “Likely as not,” said Louisa casually, “I shall marry one of you when I come back!” “Which?” inquired the three youths eagerly. “The one that’s got the most money.” “Ah!” said the young baker from Rotherhithe New Road contentedly. “And the most sense.” “Good!” remarked the assistant from the Free Library. “And the best temper.” “Right-o!” said the booking clerk from Walworth Road station. Lady Frances asked Erb to get an evening paper, and he went to the small bookstall on the platform. The train was on the point of starting, and he took up a Conservative evening paper. As he did so, he glanced at the placard that was being pinned to the stall, and observed a line “Massacre of English Commission in Morocco.” He quickly bought another journal of an earlier edition. Later, when the train had gone, he found in the “fudge” of the first journal a brief message, printed unevenly, with a similar heading:— “The Foreign Office has received news of the massacre of the English Commission recently sent out to Morocco. No particulars are to hand, but the Commission included the Lieutenant the Hon.—” “Her young man!” cried Erb distressedly. “Thought as much! This’ll be a fearful upset for her.” He had some idea of going at once to Eaton Square, but this seemed of little use, and he had become so much accustomed to consulting Rosalind that he decided instead to go down to Southampton Street. Arrived there, he found commotion of such importance that this trouble concerning Lady Frances took a second place. An ambulance stood inside the gate, near to the specimens of graveyard statuary, and on the steps of the house, a constable.