I feel very distressed about a sentence in a letter of Vera's that arrived a few minutes ago. I have been away from my battalion for nearly ten days now, and in consequence all my correspondence is waiting for me there and cannot be sent on because they don't know where I am precisely, and couldn't very well send over here if they did. The letter that came this evening was addressed: "Attached 1st ---- Light Infantry," and must have been sent on the chance of reaching me. In it Vera says that you seem changed since she saw you last--rather anxious, and worn, and very tired. I am quite at sea as to when and how she saw you, but gather from the context that she must have been down to Sunny Cliff. Is this so? But I do hope that you are not "rather anxious and worn and very tired." It troubles me muchly. Qu'est ce qu'il y a? Is it finances and family navigation; or working too hard; or myself; or what? Please do tell me. Is there anything I can do? I seem to be very much cut off from everything and everybody just lately. Sometimes I rather exult in it; sometimes I wonder how much of the old Roland is left. I have learnt much; I have gained much; I have grown up suddenly; I have got to know the ways of the world. But there is a poem of Verlaine's that I remember sometimes: "O, qu'as tu fait, toi que voilà, Pleurant sans cesse? Dis, qu'as tu fait, toi que voilà, De ta jeunesse?" As I told you last week, I hope to be coming over again to see you soon--quite soon, in fact. Those words of Vera's, though, have troubled me much. Meanwhile, Very much love to Father and The Bystander, Always your devoted, L. Y. W. P.S. (a day later).--Have got leave from the 24th to the 31st. Shall land on the 25th. Such a very wistful letter! It is the saddest, I think, that I have ever had from him. But, oh! what the postscript means to me! Land on the 25th! Our home--this house in which I am waiting--is very near the coast. It is not exactly at the spot where he must land, but it ought not to take him more than an hour or an hour and a half to get here. And yet it is half-past nine at night on the 25th, and I and the dinner are still waiting! There are others waiting, too. They sat in this room with me at first, but they got restless and now they are in different parts of the house, trying to do other things while they wait. It is so useless trying to do other things when one waits for a really important thing to happen! I am restless, too, but somehow my spirit's restlessness takes the form of a deadly bodily stillness. All of me is waiting under a spell of suspense, and I feel that if I make the slightest movement I may break the spell. It is my darling boy that I am waiting for.