In London beyond "the gate" there were other anxieties, but these poor people knew nothing of them. War and its menace: the chimera of fabled foes crossing the black ice in endless columns; cannon rumbling where ships had sailed; England no longer an island, her ramparts of blue waters gathered up; her gates thrown open to any who would affront her--if the West End discussed all this covertly and as though afraid, the East knew nothing of it. Here the danger was not of to-morrow, but of to-night! The peril, ever present, fell upon them now at the bidding of the natural law. For the first time since the outcasts of the world had found sanctuary beyond Aldgate, their city of refuge had been unable to feed them. And now hunger bade them go forth to the land of promise, so near, so rich in all they needed. Shall we wonder that starving mobs gathered in every square; that the courts were full of desperadoes with murder in their eyes; that even the honest would listen and admit that this or that might be done? Upon the other side were the police and the soldiers, many thousands hidden prudently from the eyes of the mobs. If the Government could do little to feed these people, it could, at least, protect the people who were fed for the time being, at any rate. Commanded by the "man of iron," the cavalry were marched hither and thither, but always to form a cordon about the dangerous areas. Special drafts of constables came from the distant suburbs to overawe poor devils whose greatest crime was their hunger. Stepney was besieged by authority, fearful that men would go out to get the children bread, and ashamed that bread should be withheld. Here had Nature's war become one of a civil people, paying a debt they long had owed to their exacting creditors, "Want of Forethought and Economy." The sword of a foreign enemy would have been the lesser peril--it was evident enough now to everyone! Through such scenes, by the dark and dangerous streets, went Gabrielle to the ancient Temple. She found it occupied by busy missionaries, who knew neither night nor day while the work of mercy must go on. In and out they went as they returned from some mean house, or set off for another. Dawn found them still at work, the terrible dawn when the country waited for the verdict in Nature's court, and even the dullest had come to know that this was an island kingdom. III Faber and Trevelle reached Stepney early on the morning of the following day. Gabrielle was still at the Temple and while she had expected the visit of the resistless "inspiration," as she had come to call Trevelle, John Faber's advent was unlooked for.