this was the more unfortunate because a number of political and social big-wigs were foregathering at this famous week-end trysting place in the Midlands in the hope of meeting the new Home Secretary.
The odd circumstances of the case forebade any explanation. And in the face of Endor's general evasiveness, it needed all the clear-headed loyalty of a newly married wife to avert a first rift in the lute. Beyond a few vague reasons which bore no analysis, this sudden and unpardonable desertion had to be left undefended. Not a hint could be given of the tragic coil in which he was involved. It was indeed a test of Helen's faith to go forth alone among strangers with a hastily improvised excuse for the nonappearance of her husband.
On Sunday morning Endor motored down into Kent. He was in a state of mental darkness as great perhaps as any through which he had yet passed. Bitterly he realized his folly. He was in a terrible morass. Now that he was his true self, he saw that this Society, to which he was bound by a most solemn oath of allegiance, was itself a menace to the world. No matter what the abuses it set out to destroy, to a mind of perfect balance it hardly admitted of question that the nostrum was at least as bad as the disease.
During a two hours' journey into the Weald of Kent, he gave furious thought to the problem before him. At all hazards he must free himself from the toils of those whom he now felt to be inimical to so-
