Alma at St Barnabas’s, and Mrs Dare at The Red House each received a brief note from Con, from Southampton, saying he was leaving immediately but was not permitted to say more. He seemed in the best of spirits and said he had plenty to do. After that the vail of war fell between him and them, and to them was left the harder task of possessing their souls in hope, with such patient endurance as they could draw from higher hidden sources. Both, however,--Alma in her crowded ward, and Mrs Dare in the less strenuous and so the more meditative sphere of home,--went about their daily tasks with tranquil faces which permitted no sign to show of the fears that might be in them. It was their quiet part in the crisis to give of their best and suffer in silence, as it was the part of the millions of other women similarly circumstanced. Mr Dare had perhaps the heaviest burden to bear at this time, and in spite of his attempts at cheerfulness the weight of it was apparent in him. His business at a deadlock, valued customers urgently claiming the fulfilment of contracts, the goods they wanted hermetically sealed within the flaming borders of Germany and Austria, accounts for goods sent to those countries falling due, and no money forthcoming from abroad to meet them. No wonder he looked harassed and aged, and at times grew somewhat irritable under the strain. What his wife was to him in those days none but he knew,--not even Mrs Dare herself in full. In her own quiet fashion she would at times draw him gently on to unburden himself to her in a way that would have been impossible to anyone else, and her great good sense would seek out the hopeful possibilities and tone down the asperities of life. And when things were past speaking about she would show, by her silent sympathy and brave face, that she understood but still had faith in the future. But for an unusually alert and active business man to find himself, without warning, plunged suddenly into a perfect morass of difficulties, for which no blame attached to anyone save to the blind precipitancy of untoward circumstance;--to find himself helplessly idle where his days had always been briskly over-full,--it was enough to drive any man off his balance, and in some cases it did. He went down to St Mary Axe each morning and stopped there all day in gloomy exasperation. He explained his situation to irritated clamourers for goods till he grew sick of explaining. He was grateful when release came at night; and in the night he lay awake at times and hugged to himself the few precious hours which still intervened before he must shoulder his burden again. Sunday he looked forward to, all the week long, as a dies non when business matters ceased perforce from troubling and his weary soul could take its rest. He longed for weeks of Sundays. At times, in his utter weariness, the thought of the final unbroken rest made infinite appeal to him.