"By the way, Nancy Tresize has been accepted for Nursing work abroad. You remember that years ago she took a full certificate as a Nurse, and through the Admiral's influence she has obtained a post in France—at a French hospital, I expect. Perhaps she thinks she will thus be nearer Captain Trevanion, to whom report says she is going to be, if she is not already, engaged, If he is wounded, it might be that she would be able to nurse him.
"Oh, Bob, my boy, my boy, you've lost her. I am told that she despises you beyond words, while the Admiral regrets having given you free access to his house and called you his friend. All this is an awful grief to me. If you went to the front I should of course live in daily and hourly dread of anything happening to you, but all the same I should be proud beyond words to know that my son had offered his life for his country. But now—well, before I received this Oxford paper I felt ashamed to meet my friends."
Bob closed the letter with a sigh. He was wounded in the house of his friends. If it were only right, if it were Christian to——; but no, it was not. It was a violation of every known principle of Christ. Because the Germans used murderous means to make Europe a hell, it did not follow that England should do the same. Two wrongs could not make a right Besides, how much peace and good-will was there in it all?
The next day he saw an announcement that a great meeting was to be held that same night at the Imperial Opera House, to be addressed by certain well-known statesmen. The purpose of the meeting was to instruct the public as to the real causes of the war, and to point out the nation's duty. Bob made up his mind to go. Throughout the day he applied himself to his work, and then after an early dinner he left the Temple, and going out by way of the Temple Church found himself in Fleet Street.
Everywhere the evidences of the war were manifest. On every conveyance was a call to arms. Newsboys were eagerly shouting the contents of the papers, people were talking in the streets of the one prevailing topic.
Presently he stopped at a bookshop, and was immediately struck with the changed character of the literature in the window. There were no "latest novels," no "new and important biographies"; instead every shelf was weighted with books about the war.
"GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR, by General von Bernhardi. Startling disclosures of Germany's aims and plans, by a well-known German General," he read. "This is one of the most popular books in Germany, and is recommended by the Kaiser and the Crown Prince of Germany, as a book which every patriot should read. It explains why we are at war to-day."
Side by side were others of a similar description, all written by men who bore the greatest German names.
Prince von Bülow, ex-German Chancellor, Nietzsche, Trietschke, and similar great names were given as the authors of the books.
Bob entered the shop, and having selected three which he thought promised to give him the best idea of Germany's aims and methods, ordered the bookseller to send them to his chambers.