When it grew quite dark, parties of sober merry-makers would put off in small boats, each with its coloured lantern, and ply quietly to and fro, weaving their trailing reflections into patterns of extraordinary beauty, till the lake below looked like a great dark blue carpet shot through and through with wavering tracery of gleaming gold and all the colours of the rainbow. And it was all undoubtedly very charming and beautiful, but, to Lois, it was also all most strangely unreal and evanescent, as though at any moment, at the sound of bell or whistle, it might all vanish and give place to scenes less tranquil. For somewhere over there the world was at war and how far it might spread none could tell. So the days ran on, and only now and again when it rained, and trips up aloft were out of the question, did they ever find them long. Their chief lack still was news of what was actually happening over yonder behind the curtain. And this began to tell on Ray though he did his best at first to hide it. But Lois saw and understood. Away across there in Belgium and the north of France, England might be feeling already the sore need of every man she could put into the field. His fellows might already be pressing to the front. And he was tied here by the leg. He did his best not to show how he was feeling it, but there it was, and his thoughtful silences, and an occasional concentrated pinching of the brows which she had never seen in him before, told Lois the tale even before he spoke of it. To her he was quiet thoughtfulness itself and the perfection of married lovers. For deep down in his heart was the knowledge that before very long the time for parting might come. It would be sore to leave her. It would wring his heart and hers. But he knew that if duty called she would not have him stop. He set himself to make sure, and surer still, that these brief days of married love should hold in their memory no smallest flaw, and he succeeded to the full. He told her all that was in his heart concerning future possibilities, and they talked it all over quietly, soberly, lovingly, and were the stronger and richer in their love. “Whatever comes, we have had this, and nothing can take it from us,--and the rest is in God’s hands,”--was the end to which they always came and the strong rope to which they clung. And their love grew ever deeper and stronger for this trying of it. XVIII “Absolutely nothing further so far,” said the Colonel, standing with his back to the fire in Mrs Dare’s sitting-room, as she handed him a cup of tea. “All they can say is that quite a dozen of our R.A.M.C.’s of various grades have never turned up since Landrecies, and they believe they were all taken in a bunch. And that seems to me to improve the chances of Con’s being all safe and sound. We shall hear from him before long, you’ll see.” “It is sore waiting,” said Mrs Dare.