The country held its breath in suspense at what the decision of the Government, which should be announced that afternoon, should be. One fact only was publicly known, and that was that the English fleet, only lately dismissed from its manoeuvres and naval review, had vanished. There were guard ships, old cruisers and what not, at certain ports, torpedo-boats roamed the horizons of Deal and Portsmouth, but the great fleet, the swift forts of sea-power, had gone, disappearing no one knew where, into the fine weather haze that brooded over the midsummer sea. There perhaps was an indication of what the decision would be, yet there was no certainty. At home there was official silence, and from abroad, apart from the three vital facts, came but the quacking of rumour, report after report, each contradicting the other.
Then suddenly came certainty, a rainbow set in the intolerable cloud. On Monday afternoon, when the House of Commons met, all parties were known to have sunk their private differences and to be agreed on one point that should take precedence of all other questions. Germany should not, with England’s consent, violate the neutrality of Belgium. As far as England was concerned, all negotiations were at an end, diplomacy had said its last word, and Germany was given twenty-four hours in which to reply. Should a satisfactory answer not be forthcoming, England would uphold the neutrality she with others had sworn to respect by force of arms. And at that one immense sigh of relief went up from the whole country. Whatever now might happen, in whatever horrors of long-drawn and bloody war the nation might be involved, the nightmare of possible neutrality, of England’s repudiating the debt of honour, was removed. The one thing worse than war need no longer be dreaded, and for the moment the future, hideous and heart-rending though it would surely be, smiled like a land of promise.
Michael woke on the morning of Tuesday, the fourth of August, with the feeling of something having suddenly roused him, and in a few seconds he knew that this was so, for the telephone bell in the room next door sent out another summons. He got straight out of bed and went to it, with a hundred vague shadows of expectation crossing his mind. Then he learned that his mother was gravely ill, and that he was wanted at once. And in less than half an hour he was on his way, driving swiftly through the serene warmth of the early morning to the private asylum where she had been removed after her sudden homicidal outburst in March.