Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/361

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WORD FROM JEM
347

French and Americans are pushing the Germans back and back and back. Sometimes I am afraid it is too good to last—after nearly four years of disasters one has a feeling that this constant success is unbelievable.

“We don’t rejoice noisily over it. Susan keeps the flag up but we go softly. The price paid has been too high for jubilation. We are just thankful that it has not been paid in vain.

“No word has come from Jem. We hope—because we dare not do anything else. But there are hours when we all feel—though we never say so—that such hoping is foolishness. These hours come more and more frequently as the weeks go by. And we may never know. That is the most terrible thought of all. I wonder how Faith is bearing it. To judge from her letters she has never for a moment given up hope, but she must have had her dark hours of doubt like the rest of us.”

August 20th, 1918

“The Canadians have been in action again and Mr. Meredith had a cable today saying that Carl had been slightly wounded and is in the hospital. It did not say where the wound was, which is unusual, and we all feel worried.

“There is news of a fresh victory every day now.”

August 30th, 1918

“The Merediths had a letter from Carl today. His wound was “only a slight one”—but it was in his right eye and the sight is gone forever!

“‘One eye is enough to watch bugs with,’ Carl writes cheerfully. And we know it might have been