What did Franky comprehend of her terrors, her forebodings? Even Saxham’s counsels were a man’s counsels, his advice a man’s advice. "_Face your ordeal! do not flee it, lest you encounter something even more terrible!_" Not more terrible for oneself, mind you! but for that unknown, conjectural being, referred to by Franky with such foolish tenderness. The child always! Never Margot! She set her little teeth, staring out into the blue-green dusk from among her pillows. What if it were to be always so? "My boy," "My son," for ever, instead of "My wife." It was a breathless night. A hush of suspense brooded over the huge, hot city, such as prevails before the breaking of a storm. Sentences from the Secretary’s letter came back to her as she tossed under the cool light coverings: "_Wiser not to delay, lest travelling should become difficult. It will be advisable indeed for the gracious lady to start as soon as may be. English bank-notes are negotiable here to some extent. A sum in gold is most convenient to bring._" Why hang back? Why hesitate because one expected opposition from Franky? Why not slip off on the quiet without a hint to him? What a perfectly tophole idea! One could pack secretly, get funds from one’s Bank, and skip with Pauline via Ostend to-morrow! Berlin was a dull place, but anyhow one had got to be dull for some months yet. The thing could be arranged while Franky was absent on duty at the Tower, or on one of his mysterious errands to Headquarters. One could cable to him afterwards from the _Fraüenklinik_ at Berlin. An electrical thrill of energy and purpose volted through the humming-bird brain under the silken brown waves. Margot tossed back her coverings and sat up suddenly in bed. Her great eyes gleamed like a lemur’s in the light of the night-globe. She would steal that march on Franky, she told herself, to-morrow, or at the latest, the day after. Wouldn’t it be A1? The small face dimpled into mischievous smiles. She caught a glimpse of it in a mirror on the opposite wall and kissed her little hand to Margot with saucy gaiety. If Franky, down at Westminster, could only know what Kittums was planning! She had a vision of the Houses of Parliament under the white-hot August moonlight, outlined in bluish-green and dazzling silver against a background of glittering black. Like a Limoges enamel, she told herself. The long lines of electric arc-lights stretching over the bridge, up Whitehall and down Victoria Street—all along the Thames Embankment—strings of diamonds—crowds and crowds of people ... talking bosh about War when there wouldn’t——She was asleep. Asleep, while packed thousands waited under the blue glare of the arc-lights for the rising of the Curtain on the World Tragedy, of which four yearlong Acts have been played out. For the tag of which Humanity is waiting with held breath, too weary even to cry out: "_How long, O Lord?—how long?_"