And the simple words had a charm in them, and though they said “Good night,” in a mist of tears, the sunshine of hope turned them into that wonderful bow which God ‘bended with his hands’ and placed in the heavens as a token of His covenant with man, that He would always remember man’s weakness and give him help in time of trouble. Now let every good man and woman say “I’ll warrant it! I never yet found a deluge of any kind but I found also that God had provided an ark for my refuge and my comfort.”

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CHAPTER VIII

THORA’S PROBLEM

There is a tear for all who die,
A mourner o’er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And triumph weeps above the brave.
For them is Sorrow’s purest sigh,
O’er Ocean’s heaving bosom sent
In vain their bones unburied lie,
All earth becomes their monument.
Born to the War of 1854 on October 21, 1854,
a Daughter, called Red Cross.

The next night Vedder went away. His purposes were necessarily rather vague, but it was certain he would go to the front if he thought he could do any good there. He talked earnestly and long with Ragnor but when it came to parting, both men were strangely silent. They clasped hands and looked long and steadily into each other’s eyes. No words could interpret that look. It was a conversation for eternity.

In the meantime, the whole town was eager to 194 do something but what could they do that would give the immediate relief that was needed? There were no sewing machines then, women’s fingers and needles could not cope with the difficulty, even regarding the Orkney men who were suffering. To gather from every one the very necessary old linen seemed to be the very extent of their usefulness.

In these first days of the trouble, Rahal and Thora were serious and quiet. A dull, inexplicable melancholy shrouded the girl like a garment. The pretty home preparing for Ian and herself lost its interest. She refused to look forward and lived only in the unhappy present. The few words Ian has said about some wrong or trouble in the past years of his life overshadowed her. She was naturally very prescient and her higher self dwelt much in

... that finer atmosphere,
Where footfalls of appointed things,
Reverberent of days to be,
Are heard in forecast echoings,
Like wave beats from a viewless sea.