But the new recruit caught her round the waist and waltzed her across the room, and then, snatching the butcher-knife from the table, he presented arms and saluted and posed all in such an absurd fashion that in spite of her grief she smiled.
"Go right back into the shed till I tell mother," she exclaimed, "she mustn't see you till she has had warning."
Jimmie went out and hid himself, just a little subdued. Evidently his gallant act, the thing that everybody had admired in Trooper, had taken on a different colour when performed by him.
He had little opportunity to reflect upon his act. There was hardly time for sorrow before Jimmie was gone; he had been put in a draft for a Battalion already in England and to his huge delight he was sent overseas almost immediately. It seemed as if this, her baby's going, was almost more than Mrs. Lindsay could bear, and Christina was more and more called upon to be a comforter and a bearer of burdens.
It was not the fear of gas nor bomb nor German bullet that kept Jimmie's mother wakeful at night, but the pestilence that walked in darkness, waylaying the souls of young men. Terrible tales of brave boys falling before an enemy more to be dreaded than all the frightfulness of the Hun came back to Canada. It was this living Death that stalked through the camps of England, and behind the lines in France and Flanders, that made the mother's heart sick with fear.
As she watched her mother's silent suffering, Christina's soul began, again, to ask questions. What was the meaning of that psalm that Grandpa had read when Sandy and Neil went way, and, later, when Jimmie left? Did it mean anything? And if it did, why could it not bring comfort to her mother's sorely-tried heart?
Through all the days of Christina's loneliness and anxiety there was no one so kind to her as Wallace's mother. Mrs. Sutherland made a point of selecting Christina for her special helper at Red Cross meetings, and Christina could not but notice the significance of her attentions.
"You are such a comfort, Christine," she declared one day when the girl handed her back a sock with a dropped stitch deftly picked up. "Your mother is a fortunate woman. I wish I had a daughter like you!"
Christina's cheeks grew scarlet, and she was thankful that the clatter of sewing machines and the noise of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's orders secured them from being overheard.
But indeed, she could not shut her eyes to the fact that all events pointed in the direction so prettily indicated, again and again, by Wallace's mother. Wallace was succeeding beyond his own expectations, and Uncle William was growing more lamb-like every day. The road to success had surely opened out for Christina. Her Dream Knight had ridden up to her very door. He was possessed of a fine house, and broad acres, and had prospects of great wealth. He was handsome and gay and debonair, and what more could any human girl ask?