A moment later the Advocate comes into the house. “I’m sorry the sale has not been as good as we expected, miss. The total receipts will scarcely cover the valuation.” “Then there’s nothing left for me--nothing whatever?” “Nothing! I’m sorry, very sorry.” Mona, who had risen, sinks back into her seat as if stunned. After a while, the Advocate having gone, she hears the barking of dogs, the shouting of men, the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. The stock are being driven back to the hill by the servants of their new owner. At length there is silence. It is not at first that Mona is able to realize the full meaning of what has happened, but at last it falls on her. America is closed to her now. And that means that there is no place left to her in the world! Oskar comes towards bed-time. He is biting his lips and his eyes are bloodshot. She looks up at him helplessly--all the strength of her soul has gone out of her. “You’ve heard the result?” “Yes, I have heard,” he says, speaking between his teeth. “I can’t think how people could be so unkind.” “Unkind!” He is laughing bitterly, fiercely. “One’s nearest neighbours--the people one has known all one’s life.” “Oh, your people are no worse than any other--not an atom. People are the same everywhere. It’s the war, Mona. It has drained every drop of humanity out of them.” He is laughing again, still more bitterly and fiercely. “War! What a damned stupid, idiotic thing it is--and the people who make it! Patriots? Criminals, I call them! Crowned criminals and their mountebank crew conspiring against God and Nature.” He smites the doorpost with his fist and says: “But the war is not the worst by a long way.” “What is, Oskar?” “This damnable peace that has followed it. People thought when the peace came they could go to sleep and forget. What fools! Think of it! Miserable old men spouting about a table, gambling in the fate of the young and the unborn; forgetting their loss in precious human lives, but wrangling about their reparations, about land, about money, which the little mother rocking her baby’s cradle will have to pay the interest of in blood and tears some day; setting nation against nation; brewing a cauldron of hate which is hardening the hearts and poisoning the souls of men and women all the world over.” Mona, who has hardly heard what he has said, is still looking up at him helplessly. “We couldn’t help it, could we, Oskar?” Oskar, recovering his self-command, pity-struck and ashamed, lifts up her work-stained hands and puts them to his lips. “Forgive me, Mona.” “We struggled hard, didn’t we?” “Yes.” “But since God had put it into our hearts we couldn’t resist it, could we?” “No.” “And now He doesn’t seem to care, does He?” “No! He doesn’t seem to care,” says Oskar. And then he goes off with head down. _FOURTEENTH CHAPTER_ It is the Saturday before Easter.