There, feeling her way, she found candles and lit them. She went to her cabinet, opened drawers, produced papers, plans, rows of figures. Here was a plan of a new barn behind the house, here the addition of a conservatory to the drawing-room. Before her was a map of South Glebeshire, with the roads, the fields, the farms. She began to work, adding figures, following the plans, writing.... The light of the summer morning found her working there in the thin candle-light. CHAPTER VI THE CEREMONY At about half-past four upon the afternoon of November 8th, 1903, the drawing-room of No. 5 Rundle Square Westminster, was empty. November 8th was, of course, Grandfather Trenchard’s birthday; a year ago on that day Philip Mark had made his first entrance into the Trenchard fastnesses. This Eighth of November, 1903, did not, in the manner of weather, repeat the Eighth of November, 1902. There had been, a year ago, the thickest of fogs, now there was a clear, mildly blue November evening, with the lamps like faint blurs of light against a sky in which tiny stars sparkled on a background that was almost white. It was cold enough to be jolly, and there was a thin wafer-like frost over the pools and gutters. A large fire roared in the fireplace; the room seemed strangely altered since that day when Henry had read his novel and thought of his forests. In what lay the alteration? The old green carpet was still there; in front of the fireplace was a deep red Turkey rug—but it was not the rug that changed the room. The deep glass-fronted book-cases were still there, with the chilly and stately classics inside them; on the round table there were two novels with gaudy red and blue covers. One novel was entitled “The Lovely Mrs. Tempest”, the other “The Mystery of Dovecote Mill”—but it was not the novels that changed the room. The portraits of deceased Trenchards, weighted with heavy gold, still hung upon the walls; there was also, near the fireplace, a gay water-colour of some place on the Riviera, with a bright parasol in the foreground and the bluest of all blue seas in the background—but it was not the water-colour that changed the room. No, the change lay here—the Mirror was gone. After Henry had broken it, there was much discussion as to whether it should be mended. Of course it would be mended—but when?—Well, soon. Meanwhile it had better be out of the way somewhere ... it had remained out of the way. Until it should be restored, Sir George Trenchard, K.C.B., 1834-1896, a stout gentleman with side whiskers, hung in its place. Meanwhile it would never be restored. People would forget it; people wanted to forget it ... the Mirror’s day was over.