ngrily. "Why, anybody would be afraid to
go. You might be--why, you might be killed."

"I wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt," muttered Walter. "I don't
think I'm afraid of death itself--it's of the pain that might come
before death--it wouldn't be so bad to die and have it over--but to
keep on dying! Rilla, I've always been afraid of pain--you know that. I
can't help it--I shudder when I think of the possibility of being
mangled or--or blinded. Rilla, I cannot face that thought. To be
blind--never to see the beauty of the world again--moonlight on Four
Winds--the stars twinkling through the fir-trees--mist on the gulf. I
ought to go--I ought to want to go--but I don't--I hate the thought of
it--I'm ashamed--ashamed."

"But, Walter, you couldn't go anyhow," said Rilla piteously. She was
sick with a new terror that Walter would go after all. "You're not
strong enough."

"I am. I've felt as fit as ever I did this last month. I'd pass any
examination--I know it. Everybody thinks I'm not strong yet--and I'm
skulking behind that belief. I--I should have been a girl," Walter
concluded in a burst of passionate bitterness.

"Even if you were strong enough, you oughtn't to go," sobbed Rilla.
"What would mother do? She's breaking her heart over Jem. It would kill
her to see you both go."

"Oh, I'm not going--don't worry. I tell you I'm afraid to go--afraid. I
don't mince the matter to myself. It's a relief to own up even to you,
Rilla. I wouldn't confess it to anybody else--Nan and Di would despise
me. But I hate the whole thing--the horror, the pain, the ugliness. War
isn't a khaki uniform or a drill parade--everything I've read in old
histories haunts me. I lie awake at night and see things that have
happened--see the blood and filth and misery of it all. And a bayonet
charge! If I could face the other things I could never face that. It
turns me sick to think of it--sicker even to think of giving it than
receiving it--to think of thrusting a bayonet through another man."
Walter writhed and shuddered. "I think of these things all the
time--and it doesn't seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them.
They laugh and talk about 'potting Huns'! But it maddens me to see them
in the khaki. And they think I'm grumpy because I'm not fit to go."

Walter laughed bitterly. "It is not a nice thing to feel yourself a
coward." But Rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his
shoulder. She was so glad he didn't want to