Mrs. Trupp was far more to him than his god-mother: she was a friend known to him from babyhood, allied to him by a thousand intimate ties, and trusted as he trusted no one else on earth, not even his dad. Now he unbosomed to her the one matter that was worrying him on his departure--that he should be leaving Ruth encumbered with debt. Mrs. Trupp met him with steady eyes. It was her first duty, the first duty of every man, woman and child in the nation to see that the fighting-men went off in good heart. "You needn't worry about Ruth," she said, quietly. "She'll have the country behind her. All the soldiers' wives will." Ernie shook his head doubtfully. "Ah, I don't hold much by the country," he said. The lady's grave face, silver-crowned, twinkled into sudden mischievous life. She rippled off into the delicious laughter he loved so dearly. "I know who's been talking to you!" she cried. Ernie grinned sheepishly. "Who then?" "Mr. Burt." Ernie admitted the charge. "If you don't trust the country, will you trust Mr. Trupp and me?" the other continued. Ernie rose with a sigh of relief. "Thank you kindly, 'm," he said. "That's what I come after." Ernie went on to Rectory Walk, to find that his mother too had joined the crucified. In the maelstrom of emotion that in those tragic hours was tossing nations and individuals this way and that, the hard woman had been humbled at last. Stripped to the soul, she saw herself a twig hurled about in the sea of circumstance she could no more control than a toy-boat a-float on the Atlantic can order the tides. No longer an isolated atom hard and self-contained, she was one of a herd of bleating sheep being driven by a remorseless butcher to the slaughter-house. And the first question she put to him revealed the extent of the change that had been wrought in her. "What about Ruth?" she asked. It was the only occasion on which his mother had named his wife to Ern during his married life. "She's all right, mother," Ernie replied. "She's plenty of friends." "Mrs. Trupp," jealously. "Well, why don't ye say so? What about the children?" "They'll just stay with their mother," answered Ernie. "I could have em here if she was to want to go out to work," Anne said grudgingly; and must add, instigated by the devil who dogged her all her life--"Your children, of course." Ernie answered quite simply: "No, thank-you, mother," and continued with unconscious dignity--"They're all my children." A gleam of cruelty shone in his mother's eyes. "She's behind with her rent. You know that? And Alf's short. He says he's dropped thousands over his Syndicate. Ruined in his country's cause, Alf says." "If he's dropped thousands a few shillings more or less won't help him," said Ernie curtly. "And yet he'll want em," Anne pursued maliciously. "He was sayin so only last night. _Every penny_, he said." "He may want," retorted Ernie. "He won't get." His mother made a little grimace.