He still tramped the bit of trench which it was his duty to guard, looking eagerly into the darkness as if to discern the outline of an approaching enemy. "If I only could pray!" thought Tom, "if I only could!" But he had not prayed for years, the very thought of prayer had gone out of his mind and heart; but oh! how he longed for something to comfort and steady him! Well, why should he not pray? It could do no harm, it might even do him good. Lifting his eyes towards the inky-black sky, he tried to formulate a prayer, but he could not, his thoughts could not shape themselves, his mind refused to work; he opened his lips and cried, "O God!" That was all; he could think of nothing else to say, but he repeated the words again and again: "O God!--O God!--O God!" That was all. He had asked for nothing, he had indeed hardly thought of anything. Nevertheless he was comforted; the words he had uttered meant infinite things, for at the back of his mind he had a confused belief that God saw, that God listened, that God understood, and the thought changed everything. "I wonder what Alice Lister is doing now," thought the boy presently. He did not know why it was, but somehow God seemed more real when he thought of the girl who had promised to pray for him. [1] This incident was described to me as having actually taken place as I have set it down here. CHAPTER VI What was Alice Lister doing on the night when Tom prayed? If it had been a night of wonder to Tom, it had been a night of decision to Alice Lister, who had to face another crisis in her life. While Tom had been offering his almost inarticulate prayer in the trenches in the Ypres salient, Alice Lister sat alone in her bedroom. More than a year had passed since the Sunday afternoon when she had told Tom that he must make his choice between her and the life he seemed determined to lead. What it had cost her to do this I will not try to describe, for Alice had truly cared for Tom. It was true that he did not quite belong to her class, and it was also true that her parents had done their best to dissuade her from thinking about him; but Alice had been fond of Tom: something, she knew not what, had drawn her heart towards him. She had believed in him too; believed that he was possessed of noble qualities which only she understood. Then as she saw Tom drifting, she knew that her decisive step must be taken, and she had taken it. Afterwards, when she was told how Tom had risen in the great crowd at the hall in the Mechanics' Institute, and had gone up to the platform and volunteered for active service, her heart had thrilled strangely. She did not understand much about the war, but she felt that Tom had done a noble thing. In spite of the fact, too, that he had left her to walk out with Polly Powell, she had a sense of possession; it seemed to her that Tom belonged to her more than to this highly coloured buxom girl who had taken him from her.