touches our laughter and our tears. He has given his all, unstintingly, unsparingly; and now, perchance, he lies peaceful and at rest in the land where the seed has been sown; perchance he will come back to the country he has fought for when the final reckoning is over. And whichever it is—the quiet, solitary grave with the cross above it and the wild flowers blooming freshly underneath the crumbling walls of a town that was; or the taking up again of the work so long neglected—the office or the ranch, the railway in Yukon or the rubber in Malay—whichever it is, he has played the great game well. To him the great reward. …
And the women? the women who have suffered and endured with their men—more than their men. To some the great reunion, the blessed feeling that it is over. Never again will he go into the great unknown; never again that clutching terror of the telegraph boy. He has come back, and there shall be no more parting. The joy bells will be ringing out: the war will be over—won.
Thus shall it be for some.
And for the others. …
It is not for me to comfort: there are things too deep for the written word. Only one thing I say, and I say it with a full sense of its pitiful inadequacy. When the joy bells do ring out, and in the ringing seem to mock so hideously the empty chair, the voice for ever silent, then in that bitter moment, remember one thing. Somewhere or other, in the
