“Just gone. Oh, Alma! My dear! My dear!” and they embraced one another there in the road, oblivious of who might see them at it. For the tragic web of circumstance in which their hearts were caught lifted them above all care for such small mundane considerations. “Vic wrote me a line last night about you two, and I knew Ray would have to be off at once, so I came as soon as I could possibly get away. I _would_ have liked to see the dear old boy once more. How is he feeling and looking?” “Just as you would expect him to. He looks splendid. He is feeling--well, very much as we are, I suppose.” “Yes, these are sad and sober times for us all, but chiefly for us women. I think it hits us harder than the men. They have all the glamour and the activities. There is not much glamour in it for us who sit at home and wait for things to happen and fear the worst all the time.” “No ... Al, dear, I can’t tell you all I feel about you and Con. But, dear, I feel somehow that he will come back. I do not believe he is ... gone for good.” “I don’t myself. But the waiting and hearing nothing is hard to bear.... I thank God a dozen times a day that I have my work and that it is hard and taxing. If I hadn’t I should break down. You must get some work to do, Lois. It is the only way to bear it.... But when Con and I parted, the evening of the day we were married--it was just outside the big gate at the hospital--I just knelt by my bed half the night. I could not think of sleeping. And I gave him up, there and then, to God and his country, and made up my mind that I might never see him again.” “It was brave and strong of you, dear. I’m afraid I haven’t got up to that yet.” “It is best so. We may never see again any of those who go. If we can bring ourselves to really understand that, and say good-bye to them in our hearts, I think the pain of the actual news will be lessened.” “But we can always hope for them.” “Of course. We can, and do, and will. And if the hope is realised, so much the better. But if not, the pain will be less.” “It is all very terrible. Who would have thought it three months ago?” “Ay, indeed!... I cannot help hoping that those who brought it about may suffer in themselves every bit of the suffering they are causing.” Her unexpected visit was a pleasant surprise to the Colonel and Auntie Mitt. It reminded them of her sudden home-swoops of ante-war-days, but with the unforgettable difference. Auntie Mitt, indeed, kept stealing surreptitious glances at her, as though she were not absolutely certain in her own mind that this really was their own Alma. And the Colonel’s voice had a novel inflection in it when he spoke to her. “No news, Uncle, or you would have let me know,” was her first word to him. “Nothing yet, my dear. I shall hear the moment they have anything definite. But they all seem quite hopeful.” But she had heard that so often that it had come to lose its savour for her.