Where was he? He seemed to be near, listening to what you had to say of his death.
‘Charlie, my darling, if only you’d known how I loved you!’
‘I know now. I shall always be watching you.’
Then there is no cause for weeping: he is alive, he is in God’s keeping. “Lord, into thy hands I commend his spirit.” What did that mean? Pretend, pretend to believe it, cover the blankness with confident assertions.
What had become of that shining head? How did he look now?
At this very moment they were all weeping for Charlie shot dead in France. It was really true: he was dead and in the earth, he had vanished for ever. Her mind wavered and fainted under the burden of their grief: her own she could endure, but theirs was intolerable.
She went back, out of the unregarding night, to the Greek verbs which must be learnt by to-morrow.
A long time after, came the last terrible dream.
They were all bathing together from the next door raft, in a sort of dim luminous twilight. She saw her own white legs reaching out to touch the water; and she stepped in and swam about. Roddy was there, a dark head bobbing vaguely near her. Sometimes he touches her hand or her shoulder, smiling at her in a friendly way. The others made a dim group on the bank. They were all very happy: she felt ecstasy swelling within her, and passing from her among them all.
Charlie suddenly came into the group. Oh, there was Charlie safe and well and alive after all, and nobody need be unhappy any more!