"Yes, they and he, while suffering, had the assurance of entering the Kingdom of God, and that within a relatively short time. The majority of these poor fellows are without that assurance; many of them are without hope, and their martyrdom has already lasted for twenty-eight months! They are about to endure a third winter, and some of them will last for a fourth! And who knows? From all this will be born into the world, my friend, a 'religion of mankind.' It is not simply the human blood shed, it is the indefinitely prolonged torture of men, millions and millions of men, which will create a new mystic element upon which the religions of the future will draw. It is a dangerous vision; the salvation of humanity lies at the present time in nothing that in the least resembles humanitarianism. "But I have something to tell you, my friend; Misson, the husband of our good Rose, whom we have so often ridiculed because he stuck to his automobile-- Well, he has been killed, the good fellow, blown to pieces by the bursting of a shell, as he was driving some officers----" "Oh, my dear Rose! I must hasten to her!" "Do not go yet. It happened on the road to Rheims. She has obtained leave to go for his body-- Do you know what Mme. Leconque said, when she learned that Misson's body had been blown to fragments by a bursting shell? She said: 'In his auto?--What a stupid death!' The death that one receives in an automobile, you see, is not noble. It was, we now learn, the one-hundred-and-fourth time that a shell has fallen within less than thirty metres of his machine, and the ninth machine that has been struck in the course of his journeys. He will forever be unrecognized." Odette could not refrain from wiping her eyes. La Villaumer, who lost nothing of her actions, said to her: "You are weeping for another sorrow than your own?" "Is that what you think?" asked Odette; "it is still my sorrow; it is he who makes me more alive to the sorrows of others." "Yes, but from the moment when you can thus weep for others your own grief becomes more tolerable." "I would not wish to suffer less." "You are not suffering less; there is room in your heart for a still greater sorrow." "You always make me afraid when you say that." "Odette, you must not be afraid of anything." As they went up the avenue La Villaumer went on: "I remember, last spring, regretting in your presence the marvellous aspect of the Champs-Elysées in the days of prosperity. And yet not one of those beautiful old days ever aroused in me so much feeling as the crossing over of those ten war-blinded soldiers. I do not cease to regret the time when these poor young fellows enjoyed the light; but I am asking myself by what mystery the greatest suffering uplifts us above the greatest pleasure. I even believe that the stimulus of the greatest pleasure is short-lived and degenerates rapidly, while the other lasts long and is endlessly purified." "You are being converted, La Villaumer!"