The fact is that our minds are so thoroughly attuned to the commonplace that we have lost the faculty of imaginative vision of unusual things. Commonplace men--I, for instance, or Babberly--can imagine a defeat of the Liberal Government or a Unionist victory at the General Election, because Liberal Governments have been defeated and Unionist victories have been won within our own memories. We cannot imagine that Malcolmson and Crossan and our large Dean would march out and kill people, because we have never known any one who did such things. Men with prophetic minds can contemplate such possibilities, because they have the power of launching themselves into the unseen. We cannot. This is the reason why cataclysms, things like the Flood recorded in the Book of Genesis, and the French Revolution, always come upon societies unprepared for them. The prophets foretell them, but the common man has not the amount of imagination which would make it possible for him to believe the prophets. "They eat and drink, marry, and are given in marriage," until the day when the thing happens. Looking back now and considering, in the light of what actually happened, my own frame of mind while I was talking to Moyne, I can only suppose that it was my lack of imagination which prevented my realizing the meaning of what was going on around me. The next event which I find it necessary to chronicle is Conroy's visit to Germany. I heard about it from Marion. She got a letter almost every day from Bob Power, and it was understood that he was to pay us a short visit at the end of that week. He explained, much to Marion's disappointment and mine, that this visit must be postponed. "The chief," it was thus he wrote of Conroy, "has gone over to Germany. He's always going over to Germany. I fancy he must have property there. But it doesn't generally matter to me whether he goes or not. This time--worse luck--he has taken it into his head to have the yacht to meet him at Kiel. I have to go at once."