His steady success of the last few months, the triumph of the afternoon had never brought him one of the thrills which were in his pulses at that moment, not one iota of the pleasurable sense of well-being which was warming his veins.

The new menace which had suddenly thrown its shadow across his path was forgotten.

Governments might come or go, a career be made or broken upon the wheel.

He was alone with Jane.
"Now tell me all the news at Woolhanger ?" he asked.
"Woolhanger lies under a mantle of snow," she told him.

"There is a wind blowing there which seems to have come straight from the ice of the North Pole and sounds like the devil playing bowls amongst the hills." "The hunting ?" "All stopped, of course.