Abel reflected.  
“Yes,” he said presently, “but we have not fulfilled our purpose.... You know, we set out in high courage to start the army back home again—and now, here we are.”
 
“A man named Columbus set out to discover a short passage to India and found a New World. Really my son—these are not our affairs. We have done what we could.... Once I wanted the world to answer to my service—to speak up sharp. But I have made terms—hard terms we all must make. This is it—to do our part the best we can, and keep off the results. They are God's concern, Moritz.”
 
“I dare say.”
 
“When I was younger,” Fallows went on, “I wanted to make a circle of light around the world. I thought they must see it, as I did. And often I left my friends discussing my failure. But once I came home and looked into the eyes of a little boy—a little peasant child named Jan. I saw that his love for me had his soul.... Man, these matters are managed with a finer art than we dream of. The work is the thing.” Peter swung into the larger current. They had all been cold. Fallows was burning for them. The ice and the agony were melting from each heart.
 
“We think all is going wrong. We sit and breathe our failures often when the answer is in the air. If we were not so and fleshly, we could see the quickening of light about us. We have had our hours here. We have breathed the open. A very huge army is about us, and we are thrust aside. It would seem that we and our little story are lost in the great noise. Why, Moritz, these things that we have thought and dreamed will rise again in the midst of a world that has forgotten the tread of armies.”
 
They heard a voice in the street—a running step upon the stair. Queerly it happened in that instant of waiting, that Peter heard the sound of dropping water beyond the partition—drip, drip, drip, upon a tinny surface. Berthe had risen, and followed Fallows and Abel to the door. A moment later Poltneck, the singer, was with them, and the who brought him took his post with the other at the entrance. He freed himself from them, and strode alone to the front of the room, where he sat, face covered in his hands, weaving his head to and fro.
 
“You do not well to welcome me,” he at last. “I should have been in a cell alone—not here among friends. You see in me the most failure—a music-monger who forgot his greater work.”
 
“Tell us—”
 
He did not answer at once. They led him back into the shadows where Peter and Berthe had been; gathered closely about, so their voices would not carry.
 
“We were hoping not to see you,” said Abel, “yet sending our dearest thoughts. What you have done is good, and we will not be denied a song. Speak, Poltneck—”
 
“I was all right till you went. I was thinking of everything—but then I became blind. The work in the hospitals . I did not do what I could. They saw I was different, and watched closely. That made me mad. I am a fool to temper and pride. All I have is something that I did not earn—something thrust upon me that makes sounds. The rest is emptiness. In fact there must be emptiness where sounds come from—”
 
“We know better than that,” said Fallows. “Tell us and we will judge.”
 
Poltneck straightened up and met the eyes of Peter. “This is the correspondent?” he asked.
 
“He came up from the field this morning and in looking for us—fell under suspicion,” Berthe explained.
 
The long hard arm stretched out to Peter, who still was somewhat at sea, as Boylan had been, and afraid that he detected a of the dramatic.
 
“I saw your companion in the bomb-proof ............