illions of men were marching,
marching--only to kill each other--thinking of nothing but killing.
Donal too. He must kill. If he were a brave soldier he must only think
of killing and not be afraid because at any moment he might be killed
too. She clutched her knees and shuddered, feeling her forehead grow
damp. Donal killing a man--perhaps a boy like himself--a boy who might
have a dream of his own! How would his blue eyes look while he was
killing a man? Oh! No! No! No! Not Donal!

With her forehead still damp and her hands damp also she found herself
getting out of bed and walking up and down in the dark. She was wringing
her hands and sobbing. She must not think of things like these. She must
shut them out of her mind and think only of the dream. It had been
true--it had! And then the strange thought came to her that out of all
the world only he and she had known of their dreaming. And if he never
came back--! (Oh! please, God, let him come back!) no one need ever
know. It was their own, own dream and how could she bear to speak of it
to any one and why should she? He had said he wanted to have this one
thing of his very own before his life ended--if it was going to end. If
it ended it would be his sacred secret and hers forever. She might live
to be an old woman with white hair and no one would ever guess that
since the morning stars sang together they two had belonged to each
other.

Night after night she lay awake with thoughts like these. Through the
waiting days she began to find an anguished comfort in the feeling that
she was keeping their secret for him and that no one need ever know.
More than once she went on quietly with her writing when people stood
near her and spoke of him and his regiment, which every one was
interested in because he was so handsome and so young and new to the
leading of men. There were rumours that he must have been plunged into
fierce fighting though definite news did not come through without delay.

"Boys like that," she heard. "They ought to be kept at home. All the
greatest names will be extinct. And they are the splendid, silly ones
who expose themselves most. Young Lord Elphinstowe a week ago--the last
of his line! Scarcely a fragment of him to put together." There were
women who had a hysterical desire to talk about such things and make
gruesome pictures even of slightly founded stories. But when she heard
them she did not even lift her eyes from her work.

One marked feat