How could this
strange being at her elbow be still deaf and blind to it!
* * * * *
They parted in the hall.
'Shall I expect you at six?' said the Squire formally. 'I have some
geographical notes I should like you to take down.'
She assented. He went to his study, and shut himself in. For a long
time he paced up and down, flinging himself finally into a chair in
front of Desmond's portrait. There his thoughts took shape.
'Well, my boy, I thought I'd won some trenches--but the
counter-attack has swept me out. Where are you? Are you still alive?
If not, I shan't be long after you. I'm getting old, my boy--and
this world, as the devil has made it, is not meant for me.'
He remained there for some time, his hands on his knees, staring
into the bright face of his son.
Elizabeth too went to her room. On her table lay the _Times_. She
took it up and read the telegrams again. Raid and counter-raid all
along the front--and in every letter and telegram the shudder of the
nearing event, ghastly hints of that incredible battlefield to come,
that hideous hurricane of death in which Europe was to see once more
her noblest and her youngest perish.
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