for now.

But there was no thought or talk of anything save victory. Let the
war go on as long as it must--it could end only in one way. We had
been forced into the fight--but we were in, and we were in to stay.
John, writing from France, was no more determined than those at home.

It was not very long before there came again a break in John's
letters. We were used to the days--far apart--that brought no word.
Not until the second day and the third day passed without a word, did
Mrs. Lauder and I confess our terrors and our anxiety to ourselves
and one another. This time our suspense was comparatively short-lived.
Word came that John was in hospital again--at the Duke of Westminster's
hospital at Le Toquet, in France. This time he was not wounded; he was
suffering from dysentery, fever and--a nervous breakdown. That was what
staggered his mother and me. A nervous breakdown! We could not reconcile
the John we knew with the idea that the words conveyed to us. He had
been high strung, to be sure, and sensitive. But never had he been the
sort of boy of whom to expect a breakdown so severe as this must be if
they had sent him to the hospital.

We could only wait to hear from him, however. And it was several
weeks before he was strong enough to be able to write to us. There
was no hint of discouragement in what he wrote then. On the contrary,
he kept on trying to reassure us, and if he ever grew downhearted, he
made it his business to see that we did not suspect it. Here is one
of his letters--like most of them it was not about himself.

"I had a sad experience yesterday," he wrote to me. "It was the first
day I was able to be out of bed, and I went over to a piano in a
corner against the wall, sat down, and began playing very softly,
more to myself than anything else.

"One of the nurses came to me, and said a Captain Webster, of the
Gordon Highlanders, who lay on a bed in the same ward, wanted to
speak to me. She said he had asked who was playing, and she had told
him Captain Lauder--Harry Lauder's son. 'Oh,' he said, 'I know Harry
Lauder very well. Ask Captain Lauder to come here?'

"This man had gone through ten operations in less than a week. I
thought perhaps my playing had disturbed him, but when I went to his
bedside, he grasped my hand, pressed it with what little strength he
had left, and thanked me. He asked me if I could play a hymn. He said
he would like to hear 'Lead, Kindly Light.'

"So I went back to t