ther of
soldiers in the field, or of civilians at home, have become hardened
to facts or ideas which would once have stirred in them wild
ferments of rage and terror.

'Shall we win, this year, Desmond?' said Pamela, as they stood
gazing out into the park, where, above a light silvery mist a young
moon was riding in a clear blue. Not a branch stirred in the great
leafless trees; only an owl's plaintive cry seemed to keep in rhythm
with that sinister murmur on the horizon.

'Win?--this year?' said the boy, with a shrug. 'Don't reckon on it,
Pam. Those Russian fools have dished it all for months!'

'But the Americans will make up?'

Desmond assented eagerly. And in the minds of the English boy and
girl there rose a kind of vague vision of an endless procession of
great ships, on a boundless ocean, carrying men, and men, and more
men--guns, and aeroplanes, and shining piles of shells--bringing the
New World to the help of the Old.

Desmond turned to his sister.

'Look here, Pam, this time next week I shall be in the line. Well, I
daresay I shan't be at the actual front for a week or two--but it
won't be long. We shall want every battery we've got. Now--suppose I
don't come back?'

'Desmond!'

'For goodness' sake, don't be silly, old girl. We've got to look at
it, you know. The death-rate of men of my age' (_men!--Desmond, a
man_!) 'has gone up to about four times what it was before the war.
I saw that in one of the papers this morning. I've only got a
precious small chance. And if I don't come back, I want to know what
you're going to do with yourself.'

'I don't care what happens to me if you don't come back!' said the
girl passionately. She was leaning with folded arms against the side
of the window, the moonlight, or something else, blanching the face
and her fair hair.

Desmond looked at her with a troubled expression. For two or three
years past he had felt a special responsibility towards this
twin-sister of his. Who was there to look after her but he? He saw
that his father never gave her a serious thought, and as to
Aubrey--well, he too seemed to have no room in his mind for
Pam--poor old Pam!

'How are you getting on with Broomie?' he asked suddenly.

'I don't like her!' said Pamela fiercely. 'I shall never like her!'

'Well, that's awkward,'--said the boy slowly, 'because--'

'Because what?'

'Because I believe she means to marry father!'

Pamela laughed angrily.

'Ah, you've found that o