"Come, darling, this must be good night ... and _au revoir_." Quickly the ferry conveyed them from the island back to Buda again, where he hired a _fiacre_. Back at her home, the wise and kindly chaperon discreetly disappeared; once again Geoffrey clasped his future wife in his arms, and, kissing the brimming tears away, made his _adieux_. "In six months I shall return," were his last words, and the next moment he was gone. Early the next morning Geoffrey left for Paris; before him England, behind him Budapest, the city of smiles, gaiety, and happiness. "In six months I shall return." The words echoed in his ears, and the hum of the wheels of the _wagon-lit_ repeated after him: "Six months, six months!" Once he looked out of the window, but he saw only an ominous haze away in the east, heavy banks of thunder-laden clouds, obscuring his last view of Budapest. Even as the looming storm rolled up from the east that morning so did other clouds spring up, this time political, born of a tiny puff of blue smoke which was slowly emitted from the barrel of a revolver, held in the hands of a fanatic; and less than a month later followed the whirlwind, and the upheaval of Europe. Geoffrey's dream was past, buried in the heart of the bloody battlefield. II The War was over! Peace had come again to Germany, France, England, Italy, and the United States. Over these countries there was once more contentment, the happiness of a quickly reviving industry. The echoing boom of guns was no longer heard, air-raids were already but a memory, telegraph boys ceased to be of heartrending significance. Already war-scarred warriors were being demobilized; ex-soldiers were returning to more peaceful employment; food, diverted from its destination--headquarters--was becoming plentiful, of a better quality. War was over! Now only time was needed, and these countries would be their old selves again. In Paris the statesmen were collecting to discuss peace terms and reparations. This was the position in March 1919 of the victors, and even of some of the vanquished. Germany, beaten and cowed, was now putting its house in order. Turkey, philosophically shrugging its shoulders, was merely resuming life where it had been left off. So busy were the victors celebrating victory, so engaged were the vanquished making the best of their defeat, that the world overlooked one country where peace had failed to find a harbour, where post-War conditions were worse than during that awful period of war itself, the country in which human jackals and vultures were already gathered to disrupt and dissect an already breaking empire--Hungary. Upon Hungary Lenin, from the fastnesses of Moscow, had already cast his eyes, and so he sent out his lieutenants, schooled in fiendish cruelty, inculcated with inhuman conceptions of government.