Looking back upon those days when frightened and starving, we saw the old order changed, and the Millennium born, I see the persons of the drama, vague, gigantic, fighting in a region of mist and flame to one great end of Peace. Yet I knew all the time that they were human, a woman, and certain men who loved and sinned, who fought and suffered. The evil was burned out of us, the good survives; the scorched and shaken earth is purified. The Greeks, who were very wise, invented that old myth of Phaeton who dared to drive the chariot of the Sun, but lost his head, and failed, and burned the world. There is to be no more war, so I doubt if there will be any more progress. Take this heresy if you will, as the maunderings of an old fighter; but have not the ages of suffering been ever the ages of growth? Strength is the child of pain, and in her agony the world gave birth to saints and heroes. The millennial peace will never know the like. Never again will there be such a woman as our Lady the Queen, such men as John Brand, or Lord Sydney. Their age is memorable, their race illustrious, and for my part, I do not greatly care to live on after them. My work is done, and sitting at my window as I write these last words of my prologue, I see with dim eyes the roofs of London reaching away into the night, the moonlight faint upon her hanging gardens, her palaces and towers, her spires and soaring domes. The bells have been tolling the hours of the dying twentieth century, but now they have broken into one great peal of triumph, they are ringing in the Millennium. "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation." THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN I CHANCELLOR OF THE EMPIRE "Margaret, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India." In the Year of our Lord, 1980, and on the third day of June in that year was Margaret crowned. Three weeks before the Coronation the sun was setting over St. Michael's woods, and changed the grey walls of Ulster House to luminous orange. A purple bloom of shadow lay on the terrace, but full in the glow from the windows sat the master of the house asleep. The cane chair creaked at times under his weight as he changed dreams. Dressed in the evening costume of the period--claret-coloured broadcloth, and silk stockings, low shoes with garnet buckles, and white ruffles--he was a picture of dignified innocence and stately rest: His Grace, the Duke of Ulster, Chancellor of the federated British Empire, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, full of years, honours, and a good dinner. Close to him, in the ivy of the wall, a pair of ring-doves cooed and crooned between love and slumber. They were newly wed, and all the world was at rest.