Sometimes a generation must suffer that succeeding ones may be blest." "The question is," Mr.Foley said, holding up his wine-glass, "how far we are justified in experiments concerning which nothing absolute can be known, experiments of so disastrous a nature." A servant entered and made a communication to Mr.Foley, who turned at once to Maraton.
"It is your secretary," he announced, "who has arrived from London with some letters." Maraton at once followed the servant from the room.

Mr.Foley, too, rose to his feet.
"In ten minutes or so," he declared, "I shall follow you.

We can have our chat quietly in the study." Maraton followed the butler across the hall and found himself ushered into a room at the back of the house--a room lined with books; with French windows, wide open, leading out on to the lawn; a room beautifully cool and odoriferous with the perfume of roses.

A single lamp was burning upon a table; for the rest, the apartment seemed full of the soft blue twilight of the summer night.

Maraton came to a standstill with an exclamation of surprise.