She stood up and looked at him as he lay there in the white dawn. He was utterly innocent, utterly pathetic in his sleep, and beautiful. Sleep smoothed out his vexed face and brought back the likeness of the boy Colin, Jerrold's brother. That morning a letter came to her from Jerrold. He wrote: "Don't worry too much about Col-Col. He'll be all right as long as you'll look after him." She thought: "I wonder whether he remembers that he asked me to." But she was glad he was not there to hear Colin scream. iii "Anne, can _you_ sleep?" said Adeline. Colin had gone to bed and they were sitting together in the drawing-room for the last hour of the evening. "Not very well, when Colin has such bad nights." "Do you think he's ever going to get right again?" "Yes. But it'll take time." "A long time?" "Very long, probably." "My dear, if it does, I don't know how I'm going to stand it. And if I only knew what was happening to Jerrold and Eliot. Sometimes I wonder how I've lived through these five years. First, Robert's death; then the War. And before that there was nothing but perfect happiness. I think trouble's worse to bear when you've known nothing but happiness before.... If I could only die instead of all these boys, Anne. Why can't I? What is there to live for?" "There's Jerrold and Eliot and Colin." "Oh, my dear, Jerrold and Eliot may never come back. And look at poor Colin. _That_ isn't the Colin I know. He'll never be the same again. I'd almost rather he'd been killed than that he should be like this. If he'd lost a leg or an arm.... It's all very well for you, Anne. He isn't your son." "You don't know what he is," said Anne. She thought: "He's Jerrold's brother. He's what Jerrold loves more than anything." "No," said Adeline. "Everything ended for me when Robert died. I shall never marry again. I couldn't bear to put anybody in Robert's place." "Of course you couldn't. I know it's been awful for you, Auntie." "I couldn't bear it, Anne, if I didn't believe that there is Something Somewhere. I can't think how you get on without any religion." "How do you know I haven't any?" "Well, you've no faith in Anything. Have you, ducky?" "I don't know what I've faith in. It's too difficult. If you love people, that's enough, I think. It keeps you going through everything." "No, it doesn't. It's all the other way about. It's loving people that makes it all so hard. If you didn't love them you wouldn't care what happened to them. If I didn't love Colin I could bear his shell-shock better." "If _I_ didn't love him, I couldn't bear it at all." "I expect," said Adeline, "we both mean the same thing."