The starting-point of his facts was the truth that no modern combination of force, however superlative its effort, could crush out of international existence the power of two peoples with aggregate populations of virile strength of some hundred and odd million souls. The war had proved that. And the only possible peace resulting from it had added the conviction that, from a peace point of view, the war had proved utterly useless and damaging. Besides the enormous expenditure of treasure and the vast sacrifices of human life, it had given the world a nominal peace backed by an aggravation of international hatred and spleen a thousand times greater than had ever been known in history since the days of bare-limbed savagery. What then was the outlook? The man stirred with that nervous suggestion of a disturbed mind. War--war! On every hand war--again. Once again all the moral development of the human race towards those higher planes of light, learning, and religious ideals was shadowed by the spectre which during the last three years had flung men back to the shadows of an ancient savagery and barbarism. The savage mind of the Teuton had broken out into a fierce conflagration of barbarism. Again it would smoulder, like some slumbering volcano, only to break out again when the arrogance of the German heart told it that the time was ripe to avenge the indignity of its earlier failure. Ruxton Farlow accepted this as his basis of fact, and followed the river down its turbulent course towards that sea of disaster which he already saw looming ahead. It required no imagination. The course was a straight one, straight as the crow flies. For that passion of hatred which inspired the flood brooked no obstruction to its course. It clamored for its goal and swept all side issues out of its path. Great Britain lay in that sea beyond. Great Britain, who, in German eyes, owned the earth, and incidentally had snatched even those inadequate colonies from her bosom, which, through long years of diplomatic trickery, she had contrived to acquire. The Prussian passion for conquest had been changed through the late war to the passionate national hatred of the German people against Great Britain. This was clear. So clear that the light which shone upon it was painful to his mental vision. What then was the resulting position of the country he loved? The lessons of the war were many--so many. Yet preëminently outstanding was one fact which smothered all others in its significance, and reduced them all almost to nothingness. His father had dwelt upon the lack of national spirit when war broke out. That had been remedied. The country had changed during those three years of suffering and sacrifice. No, his father had missed the great lesson. Yet it was so simple--so simple. The man raised his head higher, and folded his arms under him as a support. He gazed down at the calm summer moonlit sea. So calm, so peaceful, so--seductive to the straining mind.