ed--no, if Germany
overruns all France we are not conquered. I am ashamed of myself for
this hour of despair. You won't see me slump again like that, I'm going
to ring up town at once and ask for particulars."

But town could not be got. The long-distance operator there was
submerged by similar calls from every part of the distracted country.
Rilla finally gave up and slipped away to Rainbow Valley. There she
knelt down on the withered grey grasses in the little nook where she
and Walter had had their last talk together, with her head bowed
against the mossy trunk of a fallen tree. The sun had broken through
the black clouds and drenched the valley with a pale golden splendour.
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," said 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 to try a long-distance
call to town myself."

The doctor was no more successful than Rilla had been, but his point of
view cheered them all a little, and helped them through the evening.
And at nine o'clock a long-distance message came through at last, that
helped them through the night.

"The line broke only in on