"He is not in his right place there," she thought.

Yet they must go, and soon. She knew that they were going, and yet she

could not feel that they were going. What she had said under the

oak-trees was true. In the spring her tender imagination had played

softly with the idea of Sicily's joy in the possession of her son, of

Maurice. Would Sicily part from him without an effort to retain him?

Would Sicily let him go? She smiled to herself at her fancies. But if

Sicily kept him, how would she keep him? The smile left her lips and her

eyes as she thought of Maurice's suggestion. That would be too horrible.

God would not allow that. And yet what tragedies He allowed to come into

the lives of others. She faced certain facts, as she sat there, facts

permitted, or deliberately brought about by the Divine Will. The scourge

of war--that sowed sorrows over a land as the sower in the field scatters

seeds. She, like others, had sat at home and read of battles in which

thousands of men had been killed, and she had grieved--or had she really

grieved, grieved with her heart? She began to wonder, thinking of

Maurice's veiled allusion to the possibility of his death. He was the

spirit of youth to her. And all the boys slain in battle! Had not each

one of them represented the spirit of youth to some one, to some

woman--mother, sister, wife, lover?

What were those women's feelings towards God?

She wondered. She wondered exceedingly. And presently a terrible thought

came into her mind. It was this. How can one forgive God if He snatches

away the spirit of youth that one loves?

Under the shadow of the oak-trees she had lain that day and looked out

upon the shining world--upon the waters, upon the plains, upon the

mountains, upon the calling coast-line and the deep passion of the blue.

And she had felt the infinite love of God. When she had thought of God,

she had thought of Him as the great Provider of happiness, as One who

desired, with a heart too large and generous for the mere accurate

conception of man, the joy of man.

But Maurice was beside her then.

Those whose lives had been ruined by great tragedies, when they looked

out upon the shining world what must they think, feel?

She strove to imagine. Their conception of God must surely be very

different from hers.

Once she had been almost unable to believe that God could choose her to

be the recipient of a supreme happiness. But we accustom ourselves with a

wonderful readiness to a happy fate. She had come back--she had been

allowed to return to the Garden of Paradise. And this fact had given to

her a confidence in life which was almost audacious. So now, even while

she imagined the sorrows of others, half strove to imagine what her own

sorrows might be, her inner feeling was still one of confidence. She

looked out on the shining world, and in her heart was the shining world.

She looked out on the glory of the blue, and in her heart was the glory

of the blue. The world shone for her because she had Maurice. She knew

that. But there was light in it. There would always be light whatever

happened to any human creature. There would always be the sun, the great

symbol of joy. It rose even upon the battle-field where the heaps of the

dead were lying.




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