splendor. The bells on the Tree Lovers twinkled elfinly and fitfully in the gusty March wind.
“Oh God, give me strength,” Rilla whispered. “Just strength—and courage.” Then like a child, she clasped her hands together and said, as simply as Jims could have done, “Please send us better news tomorrow.”
She knelt there a long time, and when she went back to Ingleside she was calm and resolute. The doctor had arrived home, tired but triumphant, little Douglas Haig Marwood having made a safe landing on the shores of time. Gertrude was still pacing restlessly but Mrs. Blythe and Susan had reacted from the shock, and Susan was already planning a new line of defence for the channel ports.
“As long as we can hold them,” she declared, “the situation is saved. Paris has really no military significance.”
“Don’t,” cried Gertrude sharply, as if Susan had run something into her. She thought the old worn phrase, ‘no military significance’ nothing short of ghastly mockery under the circumstances, and more terrible to endure than the voice of despair would have been.
“I heard up at Marwood’s of the line being broken,” said the doctor, “but this story of the Germans shelling Paris seems to be rather incredible. Even if they broke through they were fifty miles from Paris at the nearest point and how could they get their artillery close enough to shell it in so short a time? Depend upon it, girls, that part of the message can’t be true. I’m going to try a long-distance call to town myself.”
The doctor was no more successful than Rilla had
