I walked back through fields and lines of villas and terraces and then slums and mean streets, and it took me pretty nearly two hours.

All the while my restlessness was growing worse.

I felt that great things, tremendous things, were happening or about to happen, and I, who was the cog-wheel of the whole business, was out of it.

Royer would be landing at Dover, Sir Walter would be making plans with the few people in England who were in the secret, and somewhere in the darkness the Black Stone would be working.

I felt the sense of danger and impending calamity, and I had the curious feeling, too, that I alone could avert it, alone could grapple with it.