Somebody found my clothes; people I had never seen before seemed to be packing them up in trunks, not ours, which appeared mysteriously from the outside. Kind hands brought us lunch, already prepared, and so we got ready to go away. But before the end I had a hard task. Poor Tubby, the lovely old mother chow, had gone mad, or at least become dangerous through sheer terror. You know how sensitive she was. She had to be shot and nobody could get her out of the kennel but me. I went and dragged her forth and put the collar around her neck and took her to the place of execution, where the man with the gun was waiting. How did I do it? God knows, Cornelia. But it was absolutely necessary for the safety of human creatures, and I know she has forgiven me in the happy hunting ground where she has gone. She knew I loved her; but when I heard the report of the gun the iron seemed to enter into my soul. Wang has gone too, and Satan, the impish and delicious Persian cat that became an inmate of this animal-loving house after you left, was found stark by the edge of the immense crater made in the front garden by the bursting shell. It wiped out his favorite laurel bush, under which we suppose he had been sleeping when the terror came. He was not injured in any way—he died of the same concussion which split the old cedar tree and broke it right in two. Soon after eleven we trundled away to the station en route for London and Scotland, leaving Himself to make shift alone. It was his ordination, and we seemed too dazed to stand up against it. We have been here three days, and already Effie and I are both very restless. I expect in a few more days in spite of Himself we shall be speeding back, for there is much to do there. First and foremost we have to find another roof to cover us. I will write as soon as I get back, and can co-ordinate my thoughts. You and George will mourn with us, and I have no doubt George’s sentiments on the subject of America entering without further parley will be vivified and strengthened. As I write I see the desolate ruins—the broken and desecrated household gods, the crowds of gaping strangers who regarded it as a spectacle without appearing to sense its tragedy. Other houses in the town were destroyed, but I have presently no knowledge or cognisance of them. All sorrow and loss must be intensive at the first. This certainly is. It is a poor devilish kind of sport, to rain death upon non-combatants and sail away immune from punishment or reprisal. It makes women dumb and men desperate. I know what is in the mind of Himself. Loathing of the age limit, longing to defy the years and be out with the fighting forces in the field. I shall never keep him after this, Cornelia. He will slip through another door.