Later in the day the captain of the guard (the new captain) who has seen the men off by the steamer tells Mona a wretched story. The prisoners had passed through Douglas with heads down like men going to execution; they had been drawn up like sheep on the pier, while the ordinary passengers went aboard to their cabins, and then they had been hurried down the gangway to the steerage quarters. And as the steamer moved away they had looked back with longing eyes at the island they were leaving behind them. “Poor devils! They used to talk about the camp as a hell, but inside six months they’ll be ready to crawl on their stomachs to get back to it.” “But why ... why are they all to be sent to Germany?” asks Mona. “It’s the order of the congress, miss. No country wants to harbour its enemies--not a second time--unless they have something to make them friends.” “But if they have?” “Well, if a German has an English wife and an English business....” “They let him remain--do they?” “I believe they do, miss.” Mona’s heart leaps, and a new thought comes to her. If Oskar does not wish to go back to Germany, why shouldn’t he stay here and farm Knockaloe? Next morning, after the third gang has gone, she is on her way to her landlord’s. Her last half-year’s rent is due, and then there’s the question of the lease, which runs out in November. It is a beautiful morning with blue sky and bright sunshine. The snowdrops are beginning to peep and the yellow eyes of the gorse are showing. As she goes down the road with a high step she is thinking of her landlord’s answer to her father when, four years ago, he asked what was to happen to the farm after the war was over: “Don’t trouble about that. You are here for life, Robert--you and your children.” She meets her landlord at the gate of his house. He is in his church-going clothes, having just returned from Peel, where he has been sitting on the bench as a magistrate. “The rent, I suppose?” he says, and he leads her into the sitting-room. She counts it out to him in Treasury notes, and he gives her a receipt for it. Then he rises and makes for the door, as if wishing to be rid of her. She keeps her seat and says: “What about the lease, sir?” “We’ll not talk about that to-day,” says the landlord. “I’m afraid we must. I have to make important arrangements.” The landlord looks embarrassed. “But if you say it will be all right when the time comes, we can leave it for the present, sir,” says Mona. The landlord, who has reached the door and is holding it open, puts on a bold front and says: “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve had to make other arrangements.” Mona is thunderstruck, and she rises rigidly. “You don’t mean to say, sir, that you are ... letting the farm over my head?” “And if I am, why shouldn’t I? It’s mine, I suppose, and I can do what I like with it.” “But you promised my father--faithfully promised him when the farm was turned into a camp....”