“It isn’t true!” he shouted. “Say it isn’t true, Norah! Allenby says the Germans have killed Jim—I know they couldn’t.” He tugged at her woollen coat. “Say it’s a lie, Norah—Jim couldn’t be dead!”
“Geoff—Geoff, dear!” Mrs. Hunt tried to draw him away.
“Don’t!” Norah said. She put her arms round the little boy—and suddenly her head went down on his shoulder. The tears came at last. Mrs. Hunt went softly from the room.
There were plenty of tears in the household: The servants had all loved the big cheery lad, with the pleasant word for each one. They went about their work red-eyed, and Allenby chafed openly at the age that kept him at home, doing a woman’s work, while boys went out to give their lives, laughing, for Empire.
“It ain’t fair,” he said to Miss de Lisle, who sobbed into the muffler she was knitting. “It ain’t fair. Kids, they are—no more. They ain’t meant to die. Oh, if I could only get at that there Kayser!”
Then, after a week of waiting, came Wally’s letter.
“Norah, Dear,—
“I don’t know how to write to you. I can’t bear to think about you and your father. It seems it must be only a bad dream—and all the time I know it isn’t, even though I keep thinking I hear his whistle—the one he used for me.
“I had better tell you about it.