I had seen too many of those strapping, splendid fellows not to be confident and hopeful. But I had also read too much of the folly of pitting green boys, however magnificently built, against the seasoned troops of long campaigns, not to have a lurking dread as to the test. I never voiced the question, not even to my own heart; yet Satan, the manufacturer of fear, had not failed to formulate it to my subconsciousness. What if this noble America, so strong, so generous, so ready to respond to that call which Christian had uttered, so eager to pour out its all, with both hands, gladly, gaily—what if now, before the guns of a ruthless and unconquerable foe, she should meet the disaster that would bring her to the dust? What if those beloved boys, all sinew and muscle as they were, should go down as I had seen my fellow-countrymen go down, in heaps that showed the impotence of valor? I had witnessed so much sacrifice—sacrifice by mistake, sacrifice by lack of skill, sacrifice by lack of knowledge that could have been obtained—that when I looked at these lads my heart sank at moments when it should have been most buoyant. Then came Seicheprey, and I knew. Then came the Marne, the Ourcq, the Vesle; and I was satisfied. For the cause had absorbed me again, heart and soul and mind. I was being sent all over the country, and sometimes into Canada, to speak for it. In this way I came to be in a small town in the Middle West—Mendoza happened to be its name—when, picking up a paper, I saw that a hospital had been bombed. The next edition reported that two doctors and three or four nurses had been killed. The next told us their names. Among the names was.... And so he did give his all. I didn’t write to Regina; Regina didn’t write to me. She was busy, as I was busy; but somewhere in the distance and the silence between us there was a place where our spirits met. And when we met in person we still didn’t speak of it. It was too deep, too sacred, too complicated and strange to go readily into words. It was easier and more natural to talk of something else. That was at Rosyth, on Long Island, at the end of June. Hearing that I had returned to New York for a rest, Hilda Grace asked me down for the week-end, just as she had asked me exactly four years before. On this occasion she made no attempt to sound me; she mentioned Regina only to say that she was at the red-and-yellow house on the opposite hill for a little rest on her part. By disappearing after lunch on Sunday she gave me to understand that I was free. I went to the old Hornblower house by the way I had taken when I had last come away from it—down Mrs. Grace’s steps to the beach—along the shore—and up the steps to the lawn where the foxgloves bordered the scrub-oak. I went back to the veranda where I had waited and sat down in one of the same chairs. Taking out a cigarette, I lighted it and began to smoke.