e wished to be
off. In London she had been able to imagine him in the South, in the
highway of the sun. But now that she was here in Sicily she could not
imagine him in London.

"He is not in his right place there," she thought.

Yet they must go, and soon. She knew that they were going, and yet she
could not feel that they were going. What she had said under the
oak-trees was true. In the spring her tender imagination had played
softly with the idea of Sicily's joy in the possession of her son, of
Maurice. Would Sicily part from him without an effort to retain him?
Would Sicily let him go? She smiled to herself at her fancies. But if
Sicily kept him, how would she keep him? The smile left her lips and her
eyes as she thought of Maurice's suggestion. That would be too horrible.
God would not allow that. And yet what tragedies He allowed to come into
the lives of others. She faced certain facts, as she sat there, facts
permitted, or deliberately brought about by the Divine Will. The scourge
of war--that sowed sorrows over a land as the sower in the field scatters
seeds. She, like others, had sat at home and read of battles in which
thousands of men had been killed, and she had grieved--or had she really
grieved, grieved with her heart? She began to wonder, thinking of
Maurice's veiled allusion to the possibility of his death. He was the
spirit of youth to her. And all the boys slain in battle! Had not each
one of them represented the spirit of youth to some one, to some
woman--mother, sister, wife, lover?

What were those women's feelings towards God?

She wondered. She wondered exceedingly. And presently a terrible thought
came into her mind. It was this. How can one forgive God if He snatches
away the spirit of youth that one loves?

Under the shadow of the oak-trees she had lain that day and looked out
upon the shining world--upon the waters, upon the plains, upon the
mountains, upon the calling coast-line and the deep passion of the blue.
And she had felt the infinite love of God. When she had thought of God,
she had thought of Him as the great Provider of happiness, as One who
desired, with a heart too large and generous for the mere accurate
conception of man, the joy of man.

But Maurice was beside her then.

Those whose lives had been ruined by great tragedies, when they looked
out upon the shining world what must they think, feel?

She strove to imagine. Their conception of God must surely be very
diff