“They went out to a music-hall one night together,” she explained, as though a friendship cemented in this luxurious fashion could hardly be broken by an unreasonable display of passion. IV It was a few weeks later that the terror suddenly crept into Mrs. Ward’s life. Ernie’s letters ceased abruptly. The fortnight passed, then three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, and not a word. I don’t think that Mrs. Ward’s character at any time stood out so vividly as during those weeks of stress. It is true she appeared a little feebler, and she trembled in her movements, whilst her eyes seemed abstracted as though all the power in them were concentrated in her ears, alert for the bell or the knock. She started visibly at odd moments, and her imagination was always carrying her tempestuously to the front door only to answer—a milkman or a casual hawker. But she never expressed her fear in words. When Tom came home—he seemed to have aged rapidly—he would come bustling out into the garden, and cry tremblingly: “There ain’t been no letter to-day, mother?” And she would say quite placidly: “No, not to-day, Tom. It’ll come to-morrow, I expect.” And she would rally him and talk of little things, and get busy with his supper. And in the garden I would try and talk to her about her clump of pansies, and the latest yarn about the neighbors, and I tried to get between her and the rabbit-hutch with its dumb appeal of incompletion. And I would notice her staring curiously over into the empty garden next door, as though she were being assailed by some disturbing apprehensions. Ernie would not hurt that eldest boy ... but suppose ... if things were reversed ... there was something inexplicable and terrible lurking in this passive silence. During this period the old man was suddenly taken very ill. He came home one night with a high temperature and developed pneumonia. He was laid up for many weeks, and she kept back the telegram that came while he was almost unconscious, and she tended him night and day, nursing her own anguish with a calm face. For the telegram told her that her Ernie was “missing, believed wounded.” I do not know at what period she told the father this news, but it was certainly not till he was convalescent. And the old man seemed to sink into a kind of apathy. He sat feebly in front of the kitchen fire, coughing and making no effort to control his grief. Outside the great trains went rushing by, night and day. Things were “going on,” but they were all meaningless, cruel. We made enquiries at the War Office, but they could not amplify the laconic telegram.