And if this was the truth, what was the use of Sabinsport's going in? Of course there were those who said, "It will be our turn next." But Sabinsport was very far, at this point, from believing this. This crust over Sabinsport's soul had more and more discouraged Dick through the winter. Hard as it was, however, he held on, in face of the town's settled conviction, to his belief in final victory. He simply could not see either England or France giving up. It wasn't possible. They weren't made that way. They would die and die and die but not surrender; and it was this inner conviction that amounted to knowledge that was both his support and his torture, for he did not fool himself for a moment with any hopes of speedy victory. It would be long, long, long years--and what years! Young men, boys, old men, steadily marching to death, and always behind them others coming to fill their places--the earth ravaged of its manhood. High hearts, great loves, beautiful talents, beneficent powers, destroyed until the earth had been stripped of its best. Women, steadfast and brave, giving lovers, sons, friends--all that made life fruitful and lovely--giving them with no waver in their heroic souls, the only outward sign their whitening hair, their sinking cheeks, their anguished eyes. He saw the destruction of the best work of men's hands, the stopping of kindly industries, the making of things which brought comfort and health and joy to men--all ended that every hand could be put to making that which would best and quickest blow to pieces the largest number of human beings or most certainly sink them to the secret bottom of the pitiless ocean. He saw all this and still believed in victory. We would go in. Dick never doubted it from the day that England's ultimatum was given and refused. Our turn would come. It was the logic of the struggle. Sabinsport would see its men march off to death and mutilation, would see its women silently growing old, its works of peace turned to works of war; all its healthy, daily life remolded to serve the Great Necessity of conquering the Monster broken loose. Most cruelly had he suffered through the days of Gallipoli, and in this he was alone. It seemed to him sometimes that no one in Sabinsport ever thought of what was going on in Gallipoli. The truth was the field of the war had become too wide, too complicated, for Sabinsport to follow. The war for her was the line from the Channel to Switzerland, and particularly the part of it where the fighting of the moment was liveliest, so she refused to consider Gallipoli.