Chapter 14 - Page 2

dropped a light kiss on her cheek.

"Rilla, you sweet thing, you're looking simply angelic to-night. You have spunk­I thought you would feel so badly over Walter's enlisting that you'd hardly be able to bear up at all, and here you are as cool as a cucumber. I wish I had half your nerve."

Rilla stood perfectly still. She felt no emotion whatever­she felt nothing. The world of feeling had just gone blank.

"Walter­enlisting"­she heard herself saying­then she heard Irene's affected little laugh.

"Why, didn't you know? I thought you did of course, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. I am always putting my foot in it, aren't I? Yes, that is what he went to town for to-day­he told me coming out on the train to-night, I was the first person he told. He isn't in khaki yet­they were out of uniforms­but he will be in a day or two. I always said Walter had as much pluck as anybody. I assure you I felt proud of him, Rilla, when he told me what he'd done. Oh, there's an end of Rick MacAllister's reading. I must fly. I promised I'd play for the next chorus­Alice Clow has such a headache."

She was gone­oh, thank God, she was gone! Rilla was alone again, staring out at the unchanged, dreamlike beauty of moonlit Four Winds. Feeling was coming back to her­a pang of agony so acute as to be almost physical seemed to rend her apart.

"I cannot bear it," she said. And then came the awful thought that perhaps she could bear it and that there might be years of this hideous suffering before her.

She must get away­she must rush home­she must be alone. She could not go out there and play for drills and give readings and take part in dialogues now. It would spoil half the concert; but that did not matter­nothing mattered. Was this she, Rilla Blythe­this tortured thing, who had been quite happy a few minutes ago? Outside, a quartette was singing "We'll never let the old flag fall"­the music seemed to be coming from some remote distance. Why couldn't she cry, as she had cried when Jem told them he must go? If she could cry perhaps this horrible something that seemed to have seized on her very life might let go. But no tears came! Where were her scarf and coat? She must get away and hide herself like an animal hurt to the death.

Was it a coward's part to run away like this? The question came to her suddenly as if someone else had asked it. She thought of the shambles of the Flanders front­she thought of her brother and her playmate helping to hold those fire-swept trenches. What would they think of her if she shirked her little duty here­the humble duty of carrying the programme through for her Red Cross? But she couldn't stay­she couldn't­yet what was it mother had said when Jem went: "When our women fail in courage shall our men be fearless still?" But this­this was unbearable.

Still, she stopped