Germans ... that one must put aside the generous
beliefs, the kindly intentions, one's work, one's faith, everything ...
and kill Germans; unceasingly, without relenting ... kill Germans; that
for every wound these men bore, for every drop of blood they had lost,
for every pang they had endured, for every tear that their women had
shed ... one must kill Germans.

He withdrew from the crowd. Somewhere near at hand, there was a
recruiting office. He remembered to have seen a large guiding sign
outside St. Martin's Church. He would go there!...

He had to wait until the procession of motor-ambulances had passed by,
and then he crossed the street and went to find the recruiting office.
"I'm excited," he said to himself. "I'm full of emotion. That's what I
am. I'm over-wrought. Those soldiers!..."

In his mind, he could see the woman in the motor-car, hugging her
wounded husband ... and a soldier, lying on a stretcher in an ambulance,
with his head swathed in bandages, near a little window ... feebly
trying to wave his hand to the crowd....

"It's no good being sloppy," he told himself. "One can't win a war by
... spilling over. One's got to keep one's head!"

He turned the corner of the Church and saw the recruiting office,
covered with posters, in a narrow lane. He walked towards it, slackening
his pace as he did so ... and then he walked past it.

"I can't go in now," he thought. "I must see Roger first ... and there's
the book to finish ... and Mary!..."

4

He had seen Roger and Rachel, and was now on his way back to
Boveyhayne.... Roger had agreed that he would not join without Henry. "I
can't go yet," he had said. "When I've saved a little more, I'll go in.
I want to leave Rachel and Eleanor as secure as I can!"

There was another boom in recruiting just then, following on another
German outrage.

"It'll take them some time to shape the crowd they're getting now,"
Roger had said, "so that we won't be hindering them if we hang back for
a while. I should have thought you'd want to go into an Irish regiment,
Quinny!"

"It doesn't very much matter, does it, what the regiment is?" Henry had
answered. "The labels are more or less meaningless now. And I'd like to
be with some one I know!"

He had given Mrs. Graham's invitation to Rachel, and Rachel had sent her
thanks to Mrs. Graham. She would be glad to go to Boveyhayne when
everything was settled.

Things were clearer now. In a little while, Mary and he