The unkempt women met their fellow not unkindly. They drew her to the fire and rubbed her frozen hands; then, while one brought a bowl of steaming mess, another laid dry moss and heather in the bed-place of her unfinished dwelling. A protesting baby was wakened from its sleep and dandled for her comfort and inspection—its mother giving frank and loud-voiced details concerning the manner of its birth. There was a rough and good-natured attempt to raise her drooping spirits, and Ada, fed and warmed, brightened visibly and responded to the clack of tongues. This, at least, the new world had restored to her—the blessing of loud voices raised in chatter.... All the same, on the second night of their new life Theodore, awake in the darkness, heard her sniffing and swallowing her tears. “What is it?” he asked and she clung to him miserably and wept her forebodings on his shoulder. Not only forebodings of her coming ordeal in the absence of hospitals and doctors, but—was this, in truth, to be the world? These people—so they told her—knew of no other existing; but what had become of all the towns? The trams, the shops, the life of the towns—her life—where was it? It must be somewhere—a little way off—where was it?... He soothed her with difficulty, repeating his warnings on the danger of open regrets for the past and reminding her that to-morrow she also would be called on for the oath. “I know,” she whimpered. “Of course I’ll taike an oath if I must. But you can’t ’elp thinking—if you swear yourself black in the faice, you can’t ’elp thinking.” “Whatever you think,” he insisted, “you mustn’t say it—to anyone.” “I know,” she snuffled obediently, “I shan’t say nothing ... but, oh Gawd, oh Gawd—aren’t we ever going to be ’appy again?” He knew what she was weeping for—shaking with miserable sobs; the evenings at the pictures, the little bits of machine-made finery, the petty products of “devil’s knowledge” that had made up her daily life. The cry to her “Gawd” was a prayer for the return of these things and the hope of them had so far sustained her in peril, hardship and loneliness. Pictures and finery had always been there, just a mile or two beyond the horizon—awaiting her enjoyment so soon as it was safe to reach them. Now, in her overpowering misery and darkness of soul, she was facing the dread possibility that they no longer awaited her, that the horizon was immeasurable, infinite.... Guns and bombs and poisons—nobody wanted them and she understood people making up their minds to do without ’em. But the other things—you couldn’t go on living without the other things—shops and proper houses and railways.... “It can’t be for always,” she persisted, “it can’t be”—and was cheered by the sudden heat of his agreement, the sudden note of protest in his voice. The knowledge that he sympathized encouraged her and, with her head on his shoulder, sniffing, but comforted, she began to plan out their deliverance.