"Rendel!" he said, half starting up. Rendel turned round with a start, dragging his mind from the thing it was bent upon. "How awful this is!" said Sir William, holding up the paper with a shaking hand. Rendel began to understand. But, that he should have to look up for one moment, for the fraction of a second, from those words that he was transcribing! "Yes, yes, it is terrible," he said, and bent over his writing again. Sir William tried to go on reading. What was this about Germany? War would mean the collapse of everything--private schemes as well as all others. "War! Do you think it can possibly mean war?" he said. "Can't Germany be squared?" "War!" said Rendel without looking up. "Who can tell?" And again he felt the supreme excitement of standing unseen at the right hand of the man who was driving the ship through the storm. Sir William laid down the paper on his knee and tried to think, but all he could do was to close his eyes and keep perfectly still. Everything was vague ... and the worst of it--or was it the best of it?--was that nothing seemed to matter. At the same moment a brief colloquy was being exchanged outside the hall door. Stamfordham's brougham had drawn up again, and Thacker, who was standing hanging about the hall with a secret intention of being on the spot if tremendous things were going to happen, had instantly rushed out. "Is Mr. Rendel in?" said Lord Stamfordham hurriedly as Thacker stood at the door of the brougham. "Yes, my lord." "Ask him to come and speak to me." Thacker was shaken into unwonted excitement; he opened the door of the study quickly and went in. Sir William started violently. Any sudden noise in the present state of his nerves threw him completely off his balance. "Can you come and speak to Lord Stamfordham, sir?" Rendel sprang up; then with a sudden thought turned back and pulled down the top of his writing-table, which shut with a spring, and rushed out without seeing that Sir William had begun raising himself laboriously from his chair as he said-- "Don't let me be in your way, Rendel." "His lordship is not coming in, Sir William," said Thacker. Sir William sank back into his chair. Thacker, after waiting an instant as though to see whether Gore had any orders for him, went quietly out, closing the door after him.