beyond words, but she
kept herself in check.

"That's all I wanted to know. Thank you. We are not going to play
tennis for a little while. We are all going for a walk. Good
afternoon."

"You mean that you do not wish me to go with you."

"I do not think you--you would enjoy coming. You see the others----"

She did not complete the sentence, but hurried away, leaving him alone.

Bob felt as though the heavens had become black. He had expected to be
misunderstood, sneered at, despised; but he had never dreamed that
Nancy would turn from him like this. He knew she hated war. He
remembered her telling him about her eldest brother who had been killed
in the Boer War, and how it had darkened her home, and added years to
her father's life. She had encouraged him in the career he had marked
out too; she had agreed with him that the work he had at heart was the
noblest any man could do. As a consequence, he thought she would
understand him, sympathise with him.

Bob had not come to his decision carelessly, or with a light heart. He
had gone over the ground inch by inch. Yes, England was in the right.
He did not believe that Germany had planned the war, and he blamed the
Czar as much as he blamed the Kaiser. No doubt Germany had broken
treaties. It was wrong for her to invade Luxemburg, and then to send
her ultimatum to Belgium, after she had been a party to the treaty to
maintain Belgium's integrity and neutrality. Of course, the King of
the Belgians had made a strong case when he had called upon England to
protect her.

But war!

He thought of what it meant, for his father's teaching and influence
were not forgotten. Generations of Quaker influence and blood were not
without effect. War was born in hell. It was an act of savagery, and
not of Christian nations. He pictured the awful carnage, the
indescribable butchery, the untold horror which were entailed. He saw
hordes of men fighting like devils; realised the lust for blood which
was ever the concomitant of war. Besides, they settled nothing. Wars
always bred wars, one always sowed the seeds of another. When this
bloody welter came to an end, what then? After the nation's wealth had
been wasted, after tens of thousands of the most promising lives had
been sacrificed, after innumerable homes had been laid waste, after all
the agony, what then? Would we be any nearer justice? Would wrong be
righted, and love take the place of hatred?

But t