Nazareth to keep his heart as the heart of a little child.

Then he set his lips, wondering how long Father Francis would bear the
pressure, and went down the steps.




BOOK I-THE ADVENT

CHAPTER I

I

Oliver Brand, the new member for Croydon (4), sat in his study, looking
out of the window over the top of his typewriter.

His house stood facing northwards at the extreme end of a spur of the
Surrey Hills, now cut and tunnelled out of all recognition; only to a
Communist the view was an inspiriting one. Immediately below the wide
windows the embanked ground fell away rapidly for perhaps a hundred
feet, ending in a high wall, and beyond that the world and works of men
were triumphant as far as eye could see. Two vast tracks like streaked
race-courses, each not less than a quarter of a mile in width, and sunk
twenty feet below the surface of the ground, swept up to a meeting a
mile ahead at the huge junction. Of those, that on his left was the
First Trunk road to Brighton, inscribed in capital letters in the
Railroad Guide, that to the right the Second Trunk to the Tunbridge and
Hastings district. Each was divided length-ways by a cement wall, on one
side of which, on steel rails, ran the electric trams, and on the other