"Yes."
"May I help you gather your flowers?" he asked.
"Thank you—if you care to."
They walked on in silence, skirted the garden wall westward, then north to the bullet-splintered green door.
Immediately she noticed the scars of the fusillade, gazed at them curiously for a moment, then laid a questioning forefinger across a bullet hole.
And while she stood so, he told her in a few words what had occurred the night before—told her everything, including the posting of the notice ordering a general mobilization.
She listened, her finger still resting over the shot hole, her calm face raised to his. And, when he ended:
"Then it is war already," she said quietly.
"War has not been declared.... Yes, it is virtually war. Why not say so?"
She nodded; he pushed open the heavy little door, and Sister Eila bent her white-coiffed head and stepped lightly into the garden.