I was--homesick. No one was ever so homesick. I've thought of this
place and the garden, and how one looked out of the window at the
passers-by, a thousand times. I seemed always to be seeing them. Old
Dimple with his benevolent smile, and Mrs. Wolker at the end cottage,
and how she used to fetch her beer and wink when she caught us looking
at her, and little Charlie Slobberface sniffing on his way to the pigs
and all the rest of them. And you, Letty. Particularly you. And how we
used to lean on the window-sill with our shoulders touching, and your
cheek just in front of my eyes.... And nothing aching at all in one....

"How I thought of that and longed for that!...

"And so, you see, I didn't go to the hospital. I kept hoping to get to
England first. And I left it too long...."

"Life's come back to me with you!" said Letty. "Until just to-day I've
believed you'd come back. And to-day--I doubted.... I thought it was all
over--all the real life, love and the dear fun of things, and that there
was nothing before me, nothing before me but just holding out--and
keeping your memory.... Poor arm. Poor arm. And being kind to people.
And pretending you were alive somewhere.... I'll not care about the arm.
In a little while.... I'm glad you've gone, but I'm gladder you're back
and can never go again.... And I will be your right hand, dear, and your
left hand and all your hands. Both my hands for your dear lost left one.
You shall have three hands instead of two...."

Section 13

Letty stood by the window as close as she could to Teddy in a world that
seemed wholly made up of unexpected things. She could not heed the
others, it was only when Teddy spoke to the others, or when they spoke
to Teddy, that they existed for her.

For instance, Teddy was presently talking to Mr. Direck.

They had spoken about the Canadians who had come up and relieved the
Essex men after the fight in which Teddy had been captured. And then it
was manifest that Mr. Direck was talking of his regiment. "I'm not the
only American who has gone Canadian--for the duration of the war."

He had got to his explanation at last.

"I've told a lie," he said triumphantly. "I've shifted my birthplace six
hundred miles.

"Mind you, I don't admit a thing that Cissie has ever said about
America--not one thing. You don't understand the sort of proposition
America is up against. America is the New World, where there are no
races and nations any more; she is