"But I thart you was against war and all that."
"So I am," Bobby answered gravely. He looked away towards Paradise. "But I feel Our Lord is there, or nowhere—just now."
Ruth felt profoundly moved. The young man's words, his action, brought home to her with a sudden pang, as not even the departure of Ernie had done, the change that had rushed upon the world.
Ruth looked at the smooth young face before her, brown and goodly, with all the hope and promise of the future radiant in it.
A passionate desire to take the boy in her arms, to shield him, to cry—You shan't! came over her. Then she gulped and said,
"Goodbye, sir," and moved on rapidly.
Passing through Meads, she turned the shoulder of the hill, and walked along the cliff, till she came to the long low house in the coombe.
It had a strangely deserted air, no spinal chairs and perambulators on the terrace, no nurses on the lawns, no beds on the balconies. All that busyness of quiet recreation which had been going on here for some years past had been brought to a sudden halt. Mrs. Lewknor came out to her and the two women sat a while on the terrace, talking. They had drawn very close in these few days, the regiment an ever-present bond between them. The husband of one was "out there" with the 1st battalion; the son of the other was racing home with the 2nd battalion in the Indian Contingent. Mrs. Lewknor felt a comfortable sense that once the two battalions were aligned on the West Front all would be well.
"Then let em all come!" the little lady said in her heart with almost vindictive glee.
As Ruth left she saw the Colonel in khaki, returning from his office. He came stalking along the cliff, his head on his left shoulder, looking seawards. There was about the gaunt old man that air of austere exaltation which had marked him from the moment of the outbreak of war. In his ears, indeed, ever since that hour, there had sounded a steady note, deep and pulsing like the throb of an engine—the heart of England beating on, beating eternally, tireless, true, from generation to generation.