In the middle afternoon I set out for South Kensington to see Constance Grey, to whom I had written only once during my absence, and then only to tell her of my mother's death. She had replied by telegraph, a message of warm and friendly sympathy. I knew well that she was always busy, and, like most moderns who have written professionally, I suppose we were both bad correspondents. Now there was much of which I wanted to talk with Constance, and it was with a feeling of sharp disappointment that I learned from the servant at the flat that she was not at home. Mrs. Van Homrey was in, however, and in a few moments I was with her in the little drawing-room where I had passed the night of London's exhausted sleep on Black Saturday. "Yes, you have just missed my niece," said Mrs. Van Homrey, after a kindly reference to the strip of crepe on my arm. "She has gone in to Victoria Street to a 'conference of the powers' of John Crondall's convening. Oh, didn't you know he was here again? Yes, he arrived last week, and, as usual, is up to his neck in affairs already, and Constance with him. I verily believe that child has discovered the secret of perpetual motion." At first mention of John Crondall's name my heart had warmed to its recollection of the man, and a pleasurable thought of meeting him again. And immediately then the warm feeling had been penetrated by a vague sense of disquiet, when Mrs. Van Homrey spoke of his affairs--"and Constance with him." But I was not then conscious of the meaning of my momentary discomfort, though, both then and afterwards, I read emphasis and meaning into Mrs. Van Homrey's coupling of the two names. I asked what the "conference" was about, but gathered that Mrs. Van Homrey was not very fully informed. "I know they are to meet these young Canadian preachers who are so tremendously praised by the _Standard_---- What are their names, again? Tcha! How treacherous my memory grows! You know the men I mean. John Crondall met them the day after their arrival last week, and is enthusiastic about them." I felt very much out of the movement. During the few days immediately preceding my mother's death, and since then, I had not even seen a newspaper, and, being unusually preoccupied, not only over the events of my stay at Davenham Minster, but by developments in my own thoughts, I seemed to have lost touch with current affairs. "And what does John Crondall think of the outlook?" I asked. "Well, I think his fear is that people in the country--outside East Anglia, of course--may fail to realize all that the invasion has meant and will mean; and that Londoners and townsfolk generally may slip back into absorption in business and in pleasure as soon as they can afford that again, and forget the fact that England is practically under Germany's heel still." "The taxes will hardly allow them to do that, surely," I said.