"You are a good friend, Jessie," he said. "Don't give me up, will you?"
"I couldn't," she said quietly.
They were strolling together by the edge of the lake in the hour of sunset, and Jessie, though sick at heart and tortured by the weight of her forebodings, and the tempest of fire and blood which had burst on Europe, yet tried to open her heart to the sweet spell of the tranquil evening. Somewhere behind the cloud of evil which had so suddenly taken shape in that host of barbarians who already had overrun Belgium, and which, no less, was invading the spirit of the boy she loved with the uttermost fibre of her being, there shone the eternal serenity of Omnipotent Mercy. But He dealt through human means; it was through those who had left love and home and ease behind them to perish in France that that torrent would be stayed, and through her, though in ways she could not conjecture, would come the delivery of her beloved. And in the rose-flecked sky, the leafy towers of the elms, the bosom of the lake, that Power also dwelt, no less than in the hearts that yearned for its presence and its manifestation. As in a glass darkly she beheld its reflection, which nothing could ever shatter. Of that she must never lose sight, nor cease to keep her inward eye fixed on the gleam, which some day would signal to her.
About a week later Archie was spending a delectable morning at the bathing-place. Never had there been so superb an imitation of Italian weather in England as this year, and day after day went by in unclouded brightness and strong, fresh heat. In those delightful conditions it had been perfectly easy for him to take his mind completely away from the war, and the misconceptions which he was possibly suffering under. He gave every morning but the briefest glance to the
