That night as the Colonel sat on the loggia chewing his pipe, long after Mrs. Lewknor had retired, he was aware of a pillar of blackness, erect against the dull sea and star-lit sky, on the edge of the cliff, at the very spot where he had seen it on the night of the declaration of war.

Electric torch in hand, he stole out on the pair. Oblivious of all things save each other, they remained locked in each other\'s arms. He flashed the torch full in their faces.

"O, Joe!" came a familiar voice.

The Colonel was taken a-back.

"That you, Anne?" he muttered.

"Yes, sir," his parlour-maid answered. "Me and my Joe. He come up to say goodbye. Joining up to-morrow, he is."

The Colonel mumbled something about spies, and apologised.

"No harm done, sir," laughed Anne, quietly. "It\'s nothing to some of them. Turn their search-light full glare on you just when you don\'t want, and never a by-your-leave—same as they done war-night! If that\'s war, I says to Joe, better ha done with it afore you begin, I says."

The Colonel retired indoors, doubly humiliated: he had made a fool of himself before his own parlour-maid, and in his mind he had gravely wronged Ruth Caspar.

Next day he started off for Old Town to find out if there was any way by which he could make amends to his own conscience and, unknown to her, to the woman he had maligned.

She met him with kind eyes, a little wistful.

"We\'re all friends now, sir," she said, as she shook hands. "Got to be, I reckon."

If it is true, as is said to-day, that old men make wars and young men pay for them, it is also true that the mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the young men bear their share of the burthen.

Ruth was left with four children and a debt.

She faced the situation as hundreds of thousands of women up and down Europe in like case were doing at that moment—quiet, courageous, uncomplaining as an animal under the blows that Life, the inexplicable, rained upon her. One thought constantly recurred to her. In her first tragedy she had stood alone against the world. Now there were millions undergoing the same experience. And she derived from that thought comfort denied to others.

There were no complications about her economic situation.

That at least was very simple.

She owed several weeks\' rent, had debts outstanding to the tune of several shillings—mostly boots for the children; and a little cash in coppers in hand.

Two nights after Ernie\'s departure, Alf came round for his back-rent. He came stealthily, Ruth noticed; and she knew why. Public opinion in the Moot, which might at any moment find explosive self-expression through the fists of Reuben Deadman, was against him. It was against all landlords. Ern moreover was still a hero in the eyes of the Moot and would remain so for several days yet; and Ruth received the consideration due to the wife of such.

Alf was dogged, with downcast eyes. There was no nonsense, no persiflage about him. He went straight to the point.

"I come for my money," he said.

Ruth rallied him maliciously.

"Money!" she cried, feigning surprise. "I thart it was accommodation you was a\'ter."

"And I mean to have it," Alf continued sullenly.

"Even a landlord\'s got to live these times. I got to have it or you got to go. That\'s straight."

Ruth had her back to the wall.

"Ah, you must have that out with the Government," she said coolly. "It\'s got nothing to do with me."

"Government!" cried Alf sharply. "What\'s the Government got to do with it."

"They\'re passin some law to protect the women and children of them that\'s joined up," Ruth answered.

"Who said so?"

"The Colonel."

"Anyway it\'s not passed yet."

"No," retorted Ruth. "So you\'d best wait till it is. Make you look a bit funny like to turn me out, and put some one else in, and then have to turn them out and put me back again, say in a fortnight, and all out o your own pocket. Not to talk o the bit of feeling, and them and me taking damages off o you as like as not, I should say."

That evening Ruth went up to see Mr. Pigott.

The Manager said he would pay her half Ern\'s wages while the war lasted; and he paid her the first instalment then and there.

"Will the Government do anything for the women and children sir?" she asked.

Mr. Pigott shook his grizzled head.

As the years went by he had an always diminishing faith in the power and will of Governments to right wrongs.

"The old chapel\'s the thing," he would say.

Ruth put the same question to Mr. Trupp whom she met on her way home to the Moot.

"They will if they\'re made to," the doctor answered, and as he saw the young woman\'s face fall, he added more sympathetically, "They\'re trying to do something locally. I don\'t know what\'ll come of it. Keep in touch with Mrs. Trupp. She\'ll let you know. I believe there\'s to be a meeting at the Town Hall."

He roll............