“Some of them were here to-night,” I said.
“Yes! And what death has done is just to put their bodies out of action . . . . That means there are fewer hands and more work.” . . .
As I led him to the door, O’Rane’s fingers ran lightly down my arm.
“It’s about twenty years since you first came to stay with us,” I reminded him.
“I suppose it must be. Good, full years.”
“I was feeling middle-aged till you came. Middle-aged and depressed.”
He laughed and gripped my hand:
“We’ve no time to grow middle-aged. It’s the next twenty years that will count. We must pull together. In a sense we are the last two.”
As I blew out the remaining candles, the room once more seemed to fill with our friends of other days. We were indeed almost the only survivors; and I could not tell these ghosts that they had given their lives, I could not tell O’Rane that he had given his sight, to no purpose.
“Think over what we’ve been saying,” I suggested. “Tell me if you can see any reason why just such another war shouldn’t break out with just as little reason.”