really meaning it. She meant it now. There were moments when waiting at home, in safety and comfort, seemed an unendurable thing.
The moon burst triumphantly through an especially dark cloud and shadow and silver chased each other in waves over the Glen. Rilla remembered one moonlit evening of childhood when she had said to her mother, “The moon just looks like a sorry, sorry face.” She thought it looked like that still—an agonized, careworn face, as though it looked down on dreadful sights. What did it see on the western front? In broken Serbia? On shell-swept Gallipoli?
“I am tired,” Miss Oliver had said that day, in a rare outburst of impatience, “of this horrible rack of strained emotions, when every day brings a new horror or the dread of it. No, don’t look reproachfully at me, Mrs. Blythe. There’s nothing heroic about me today. I’ve slumped. I wish England had left Belgium to her fate—I wish Canada had never sent a man—I wish we’d tied our boys to our apron strings and not let one of them go. Oh—I shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour—but at this very minute I mean every word of it. Will the Allies never strike?”
“Patience is a tired mare but she jogs on,” said Susan.
“While the steeds of Armageddon thunder, trampling over our hearts,” retorted Miss Oliver. “Serbia is being throttled and the Allies on the western front seem able to do nothing but purchase a few paltry yards of trenches a day. Susan, tell me—don’t you ever—didn’t you ever—take spells of feeling that you must scream—or swear—or smash something
