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was three weeks later.

Never had there been so successful an operation as an operation in the experience of either Sir Alpheus Mengo or Dr. Barrack. The growth that had been removed was a non-malignant growth; the diagnosis of cancer had been unsound. Mr. Huss was still lying flat in his bed in Mrs. Croome's house, but he was already able to read books, letters and newspapers, and take an interest in affairs.

The removal of his morbid growth had made a very great change in his mental atmosphere. He no longer had the same sense of an invincible hostile power brooding over all his life; his natural courage had returned. And the world which had seemed a conspiracy of misfortunes was now a hopeful world again. The last great offensive of the Germans towards Paris had collapsed disastrously under the counter-attacks of Marshal Foch; each morning's paper told of fresh victories for the Allies, and the dark shadow of a German Cæsarism fell no longer across the future. The imaginations of men were passing through a phase of reasonableness and generosity; the idea of an organised world peace had seized upon a multitude of minds; there was now a prospect of a new and better age such as would have seemed