There was one danger which Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson foresaw. At any time she might encounter the Duchess of Gleneagles or Lady Muscombe in Society. However, she decided that the risk was almost negligible. After all, their respective circles could not be said to intersect and, if she ever _should_ come across either of these distinguished ladies, it would be easy to deny all recollection of ever having met them before. And thus reassured, she was able to support the official version of the family adventures so whole-heartedly that she ended by accepting it as the only authentic one. Ruby, it is true, confided a widely different account in secret to one or two of her most intimate friends. But Ruby's story met with the fate that is only too certain to befall this veracious and absolutely unexaggerated narrative--nobody was ever found to believe a single word of it! EPILOGUE The re-appearance of the Wibberley-Stimpsons, coupled with the circumstantial explanations they gave of their mysterious absence abroad, provided their friends and neighbours with very nearly the proverbial nine days' wonder. It might have done so even longer, but for that fateful beginning of August, when, with appalling suddenness, the blow was dealt which shattered the peace of Europe and convulsed the whole world. Then the Fools' Paradise in which England had so long luxuriated crumbled beneath her feet, and left her face to face with stern realities. Nothing was the same, or ever would be the same, again. Issues, causes, topics, which scarcely a week before had seemed of such vital and engrossing importance, shrivelled into insignificance or extinction under the scorching blast of war. And so it followed that Gablehurst entirely forgot its previous curiosity concerning the private affairs of the Wibberley-Stimpson family, thereby relieving them from a strain on their inventive powers which they had begun to find extremely wearing.