As the day advanced the atmosphere of depression became continually more marked, and how extraordinary was the effect upon all classes may be judged from the fact that less than 5,000 people paid to witness the third replay between Barnsley and Everton, in the semi-final of the English cup.... In London, men and women hung aimlessly about the streets waiting for the news they dreaded to hear. The theatres were deserted. The feeling of gloom was so real that many women afterwards believed that the sky had been overcast, whereas Nature was in one of her most brilliant moods. It was a few minutes past three when the pressure was exploded by the report of the final catastrophe. "Two more cases of plague in Dundee and one in Edinburgh," was the first announcement. That would have been enough to show that all the vaunted precautions had been useless, and within an hour came the notification of two further cases. Before six o'clock, eight more were notified in Dundee, three more in Edinburgh, and one in Newcastle. The new plague had reached England. It was then that the panic began. VII--PANIC 1 Gurney, when he left his office on that Saturday, was influenced by the general depression. He went to lunch at the "White Vine," in the Haymarket, quite determined to keep himself in hand, to argue himself out of his low spirits. He made a beginning at once. "Every one seems to have a fit of the blues. Ernst," he remarked to the waiter with a factitious cheerfulness. Ernst, less polite than usual, shrugged his shoulders. "There is enough cause already," he said. "Have you had bad news from Germany?" asked Gurney, feeling that he had probably been rather brutal. "Ach Gott! 's'ist bald Keiner mehr da," blubbered Ernst, and he wept without restraint as he arranged the table, occasionally wiping his eyes with his napkin. "I'm most awfully sorry," murmured the embarrassed Gurney, and retreated behind the horror of his evening paper. He found small cause for rejoicing there, however, and discarded it as soon as his lunch had been brought by the red-eyed Ernst. "I wonder what Mark Tapley would have done," Gurney reflected moodily as he attacked his chop. There were few other people in the restaurant, and they were all silent and engrossed. That dreadful cloud hung over England, the spirit of pestilence threatened to take substance, the air was full of horror that might at any moment become a visible shape of destruction. Gurney did not finish his lunch, he lighted a cigarette, left four shillings on the table, and hurried out into the air. He did not look up at the sky as he turned eastwards towards Fleet Street; no one looked up at the sky that afternoon. Heads and shoulders were burdened by an invisible weight which kept all eyes on the ground.