ways had some
one near at hand with love-blinded eyes to see my faults as springing
from higher motives. Now I reach out my hands across six thousand miles
and only touch yours with my imagination to say good-bye. What queer
sights these eyes, which have been almost your eyes, will witness! If my
hands do anything respectable, remember that it is your hands that are
doing it. It is your influence as a family that has made me ready for
the part I have to play, and where I go, you follow me.

Poor little circle of three loving persons, please be tremendously
brave. Don't let anything turn you into cowards--we've all got to be
worthy of each other's sacrifice; the greater the sacrifice may prove to
be for the one the greater the nobility demanded of the remainder. How
idle the words sound, and yet they will take deep meanings when time has
given them graver sanctions. I think gallant is the word I've been
trying to find--we must be gallant English women and gentlemen.

It's been raining all day and I got very wet this morning. Don't you
wish I had caught some quite harmless sickness? When I didn't want to go
back to school, I used to wet my socks purposely in order to catch cold,
but the cold always avoided me when I wanted it badly. How far away the
childish past seems--almost as though it never happened. And was I
really the budding novelist in New York? Life has become so stern and
scarlet--and so brave. From my window I look out on the English Channel,
a cold, grey-green sea, with rain driving across it and a fleet of small
craft taking shelter. Over there beyond the curtain of mist lies
France--and everything that awaits me.

News has just come that I have to start. Will continue from France.

Yours ever lovingly,
Con.

VII

Friday, September 1st, 1916, 11 am.

DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER:

I embark at 12.30--so this is the last line before I reach France. I
expect the boys are now within sight of English shores--I wish I could
have had an hour with them.

I'm going to do my best to bring you honour--remember that--I shall do
things for your sake out there, living up to the standards you have
taught me.

Yours with a heart full of love,
Con.

VIII

FRANCE, September 1st, 1916.

DEAREST M.:

Here I am in France with the same strange smells and street cries, and
almost the