He drew her face against his shoulder:
"This world war is making us all feel a little lonely," he said. "The old familiar world is already changing under our bewildered eyes. It is a totally new era which is dawning; a new people is replacing the inhabitants of earth, born to new thoughts, new ideals, new ambitions.
"I think the old tyranny is already beginning to pass from men's souls and minds; the old folk-ways, the old and out-worn terrors, the tinselled dogmas, the old false standards, the universal dread of that absolute intellectual freedom which alone can make a truly new heaven and a new earth.
"All this is already beginning to pass away in the awful intellectual revelation which this world war is making hour by hour.
"What wonder that we feel the approaching change, the apprehension of that mortal loneliness which must leave us stripped of all that was familiar while the old order passes—vanishes like mist at dawn."
He bent and touched her hand with his lips:
"But there will be a dawn, Karen. Never doubt it, sweet!"
"Shall our children see it—if God is kind to us?" she whispered.
"Yes. If God is very kind, I think that we shall see it, too."
The girl nodded, pressing her cheek against his, her eyes clear and sweetly grave.