The girls listened, but all they could hear was the sighing of the wind about the house. Then, far off in the distance, came a soft rumble of thunder.
"Oh, I hope it doesn't storm," cried Amy, shivering. "That would be about the last straw."
And upstairs, in the room that Betty shared with Grace, grief and fear and horror stalked about unfettered and gazed upon the little figure on the bed.
So still and white and rigid it was that the girls would have been still more frightened could they have seen it. For, propped on her elbows, with grim, set face supported by her clenched fists, Betty was gazing unseeingly out at the darkness beyond the square of window pane.
"Somewhere he's out there," she kept saying over and over to herself. "If he's dead, there's the mud and grime—" she shuddered "—and blood too—rivers of it. But if he's captured—Oh, I can't think—I mustn't think—"
And then she would begin all over again—
"Allen is lying out there—" over and over again, till her brain whirled and her head ached and she felt faint and sick. Still she could not cry.
Her heart was frozen—that was it. And how could one cry when one's heart was frozen? Oh, Allen! Allen! How could she go on living without him? If she could only cry—if she could only cry!
What was that? Thunder. The artillery of heaven! Did they have war in heaven, she wondered. With a queer little laugh she got up and walked to the window.
A flash of lightning greeted her, illumining the world outside, flashing into bold relief the familiar objects of the little room. She knelt down by the window, regardless of danger, and lifted her face to the rising wind.