"You could not do a wiser thing," he declared. "Send your address to Avon House; to-morrow night or Saturday night I shall come for you. All will be settled then; we shall have plenty to do, but after the labour of the last seven years it will not seem like work. It will be the beginning of the harvest." She looked at him thoughtfully. "And your reward," she said, "what is that to be?" He smiled. "I will not pretend," he answered, "that I have worked for the love of my country and my order alone. I also am ambitious, although my ambition is more patriotic than personal. I mean to be first Minister of France!" "You will deserve it," she said. "You are a very wonderful man." She walked out into the street, and entered the cab which she had ordered to wait for her. "Fourteen, Grosvenor Square," she told the man, "but call at the first telegraph office." He set her down in a few minutes. She entered a small post-office and stood for a moment before one of the compartments. Then she drew a form towards her, and wrote out a telegram-- "To Lord Wolfenden, "Deringham Hall, "Norfolk. "I cannot send for you as I promised. Farewell--HELÈNE." CHAPTER XXXVII FOR A GREAT STAKE "GERMANY'S INSULT TO ENGLAND! ENGLAND'S REPLY. MOBILISATION IMMINENT. ARMING OF THE FLEET. WAR ALMOST CERTAIN!" Wolfenden, who had bought no paper on his way up from Norfolk, gazed with something approaching amazement at the huge placards everywhere displayed along the Strand, thrust into his cab by adventurous newsboys, flaunting upon every lamp-post. He alighted near Trafalgar Square, and purchased a _Globe_. The actual facts were meagre enough, but significant when considered in the light of a few days ago. A vacancy had occurred upon the throne of one of England's far off dependencies. The British nominee had been insulted in his palace by the German consul--a rival, denounced as rebel by the authorities, had been carried off in safety on to a German gunboat, and accorded royal honours. The thing was trivial as it stood, but its importance had been enhanced a thousandfold by later news. The German Emperor had sent a telegram, approving his consul's action and forbidding him to recognise the new sovereign. There was no possibility of misinterpreting such an action; it was an overt and deliberate insult, the second within a week. Wolfenden read the news upon the pavements of Pall Mall, jostled from right to left by hurrying passers by, conscious too, all the while, of that subtle sense of excitement which was in the air and was visibly reflected in the faces of the crowd. He turned into his club, and here he found even a deeper note of the prevailing fever. Men were gathered around the tape in little clusters, listening to the click click of the instrument, and reading aloud the little items of news as they appeared.