CHAPTER X

BOBS The old Field-Marshal, wise and anxious as a great doctor, was sitting now at the bedside of the patient that was his country. His finger was on her pulse, his eye on the hourglass, the sands of which were running out; and he was listening always for the padding feet of that Visitor whose knock on the door he expected momentarily. After South Africa he had sheathed at last the sword which had not rested in its scabbard for fifty years; and from that moment his eyes were everywhere, watching, guiding, cherishi…