Hugh—the son of the house close by. Twice wounded, and now out again in Mesopotamia. Did the sound of the water come to him as the sun dropped, slow and pitiless, into the west? The same parching, crawling days following one another in deadly monotony: the same....
"Dreaming, Jim?" A woman's voice behind him broke on the man's thoughts.
"Yes, lady," he answered soberly. "Dreaming. Some of the ghosts we knew have been coming to me out of the blue grey mists." He fell into step beside her, and they moved towards the house.
"Ah! don't," she whispered—"don't! Oh! it's wicked, this war; cruel, damnable." She stopped and faced him, her breast rising and falling quickly. "And we can't follow you, Jim—we women. You go into the unknown."
"Yes—yours is the harder part. You can only wait and wonder."
"Wait and wonder!" She laughed bitterly. "Hope and pray—while God sleeps."
"Hush, lady!" he answered quietly; "for that way there lies no peace. Is Sybil indoors?"
"Yes—she's expecting you. Thank goodness you're not going out yet awhile, Jim; the child is fretting herself sick over her brother as it is—and when you go...."
"Yes—when I go, what then?" he asked quietly. "Because I'm very nearly fit again, Lady Alice. My arm is nearly all right."
"Do you want to go back, Jim?" Her quiet eyes searched his face. "Look at that."