"The world is made of soldiers now," said Kathryn. "And one is always talking to them. I shall begin to ask them questions about small things like that." It was the same morning that as they stood alone together for a few minutes Kathryn suddenly put her hand upon Robin's shoulder. "You never--_never_ feel the least angry--when you remember about George--the night of the dance," she pleaded shakily. "Do you, Robin? You couldn't _now_! Could you?" Tears rushed into Robin's eyes. "Never--never!" she said. "I always remember him--oh, quite differently! He----" she hesitated a second and began again. "He did something--so wonderfully kind--before he went away--something for me. That is what I remember. And his nice voice--and his good eyes." "Oh! he _was_ good! He was!" exclaimed Kathryn in a sort of despairing impatience. "So many of them are! It's awful!" And she sat down in the nearest chair and cried hopelessly into her crushed handkerchief while Robin tried to soothe--not to comfort her. There was no comfort to offer. And behind the rose tinted mists her own spectre merely pretended to veil itself. * * * * * When she lay in bed at night in her quiet room she often lay awake long and long for pure bliss. The world in which people were near--_near_--to one another and loved each other, the world Donal had always belonged to even when he was a little boy, she now knew and lived in. There was no loneliness in it. If there was pain or trouble some one who loved you was part of it and you, and so you could bear it. All the radiant mornings and heavenly nights, all the summer scents of flowers or hay or hedges in bloom, or new rain on the earth, were things felt just as that other one felt them and drew in their delights--exactly in the same way. Once in the night stillness of a sweet dark country lane she had stood in the circle of Donal's arm, her joyous, warm young breast against his and they had heard together the singing of a nightingale in a thicket. "Let us stand still," he had whispered close to her ear. "Let us not speak a word--not a word. Oh! little lovely love! Let us only _listen_--and be happy!" Almost every day there were marvels like this. And when they were apart she could not forget them but walked like a spirit strayed on to earth and unknowing of its radiance. This was why people glanced at her curiously and were sometimes vaguely troubled. CHAPTER VIII