And this was a Polchester Jubilee. There may have been some consciousness of that little old woman driving in her carriage through the London streets, but in the main the Town suddenly took possession, cried aloud that these festivities were for Herself, that for a week at least the Town would assert Herself, bringing into Her celebration the Cathedral that was her chief glory, but of whom, nevertheless, she was afraid; the Rock upon which she was built, that never changed, the country that surrounded and supported her, the wild men who had belonged to her from time immemorial, the River that encircled her. That week seemed to many, on looking back, a strangely mad time, days informed with a wildness for which there was no discernible reason--men and women and children were seized that week with some licence that they loved while it lasted, but that they looked back upon with fear when it was over. What had come over them? Who had been grinning at them? The strange things that occurred that week seemed to have no individual agent. No one was responsible. But life, after that week, was for many people in the town never quite the same again. On the afternoon of Thursday, June 17, Ronder stood at the window of his study and looked down upon the little orchard, the blazing flowers, the red garden-wall, and the tree-tops on the descending hill, all glazed and sparkling under the hot afternoon sun. As he looked down, seeing nothing, sunk deeply in his own thoughts, he was aware of extreme moral and spiritual discomfort. He moved back from the window, making with his fingers a little gesture of discontent and irritation. He paced his room, stopping absent-mindedly once and again to push in a book that protruded from the shelves, staying to finger things on his writing-table, jolting against a chair with his foot as he moved. At last he flung himself into his deep leather chair and stared fixedly at an old faded silk fire-guard, with its shadowy flowers and dim purple silk, seeing it not at all. He was angry, and of all things in the world that he hated, he hated most to be that. He had been angry now for several weeks, and, as though it had been a heavy cold that had descended upon him, he woke up every morning expecting to find that his anger had departed--but it had not departed; it showed no signs whatever of departing.