"We heard you were burned out, and came along at once," he said, in the best of humours. "I guess you'll want all the masons you've got, Miss Silvester, and want 'em on time. That old factory should take five days to put up if you go the right way about it. If it were me, I'd leave it where it is, and make 'em toe the line among the ashes. That would teach them to behave themselves next time. You can't burn the house that's been burned already, and if they want to warm themselves, coal is cheaper. Say, write that upon what's left of the door, and you'll have the laugh on them, sure!" She was chagrined at the tone of it, but none the less, she seemed to understand that he wished her well. "If we rebuild, where is the money to come from?" she asked him, helplessly. "And what is the good of it if there is no bread to give the people? My father says the end is coming. What have we to hope for if that is the case?" "You have to hope for many things, my dear young lady--the weather for one of them. Your good father is a little premature, maybe, and is prone to believe what the newspapers tell him. The end is coming sure enough. It's not the end he looks for by a long way." He glanced at Trevelle, and they smiled together. There had been great news from Queenstown that morning. Why should they withhold it from her? "The fact is," said Trevelle, "the strike in America is over and the wheat ships are sailing. You read your evening paper to-night and see what it says. We have brains amongst us and they are busy. That's what we've been asking for all along, in peace or war, not the dreamers but the brains. And we've got 'em, Miss Silvester, we've got 'em!" He snapped his fingers, an habitual gesture, and seemed thereby to imply that he, Rupert Trevelle, had laid down a doctrine which henceforth must be the salvation of the British people. Gabrielle, however, heard him a little coldly though she was full of wonder. "I did not think you were so interested in this matter," she said. And then, "Will you, please, tell me why the men in Liverpool are striking still?" When the scientific exposition had left her more in doubt than ever, she asked of her work once more. "Then it is no good going on here if the wheat will come in," she said; "our task will be finished then, will it not, Mr. Faber?" He shook his head at that and told her of his fears. "It will be a slow business. I advise you to stand by yet awhile. If we get the cargoes slowly, as we shall have to do, the price of wheat will still stand high, and that's no good to these people at all. Take my advice and go on with what you are doing. The country owes you something, sure, and it is just beginning to find that out. Did you see your pictures in the halfpenny illustrateds, this morning? I like those fine; I've got 'em here somewhere, and I mean to keep 'em."