"Why, Rod," she exclaimed. "What is it?"
He thrust another paper at her.
"Read," he said. "The world's gone crazy. There's a war. There's been war in Europe since early August. And we're in it up to our necks. Read."
CHAPTER XVII
They sat side by side in the autumn sunshine, reading of places drenched with blood,—Liége, Louvain, Charleroi, Mons, Cambrai, Namur. The battle of the Marne was over. The prolonged battle of the Aisne was at its height. Rod had commandeered every paper in the camp. Page by page, column by column, they conned that incredible account, piecing it out by inference, filling the terrible gaps by vivid conjecture. There remained the primal fact that all Europe was in arms, that men perished by thousands daily, that their own countrymen were crossing the seas to fight.
"Phil's gone," Rod broke a long silence. "Says so here. He left for Valcartier the other day."
He looked out over the inlet's benign face.
"He'd do that," he said absently. "They'd give him a command at once. He's trained—went to Kingston."
He sat with hands clasped over his knees, silent, absent-eyed. And Mary looked at him with a catch in her throat, filled with intuitive foreboding. Words, of which each had a better command than falls to most, failed them. They sat there wandering in the maze of their own thoughts until the shrill whistle of the approaching steamer woke an echo in the hills.