'It's a lie,' she screamed. 'Give me the telegram.... It's made up; it's a damnable lie. The War Office always tells them: every one knows it does....'
They gave it her, pitifully. She read it three times, and it always said the same thing. She looked up for some way of escape from it, but found none, only Violette, hot and smelling of supper, and Mrs. Frampton crying, and Kate with working face, and Evie sympathetic and moved in the background, and Florence compassionate with the supper tray, and a stuffed squirrel in a glass case on the hall table.
Alix shivered and shook as she stood, with passion and sickness and loss.
'But—but—' she began to stammer again, helplessly, like a bewildered child—'But he hadn't lived yet....'
Kate said gently, 'He has begun to live now, dear, for ever and ever.'
'World without end, amen,' added Mrs. Frampton, mopping her eyes.
Alix looked past them, at the stuffed squirrel.
'It's just some silly lie of course,' she said, indifferent and quiet, but still shaking. 'It will be taken back to-morrow.... I shall go to bed now.'
When Kate brought her up some supper on a tray, she found her lying on the floor, having abandoned the lie theory, having abandoned all theories and all words, except only, again and again, 'Paul ... Paul ... Paul....'