“Later on, of course, things got more grown-up.  The last time we played before the War—­when War was already in sight—­we shipped an unprecedented mass of troops to that peninsula, and had a wonderful battle.  You can still see the trenches and gun emplacements; I cleared them out yesterday.  Murray joined the Army in that first August, and whenever he came home after that he was somehow ashamed of these things.  I quite understood that.  When I am having tea with the Vicar’s wife, or cutting out shirts for the soldiers, I sometimes blush a little to think how old I am, and to think of the things I do at home with Murray.  I am sure he felt just the same when he was with other men.  But his last letter was young again.  He wrote that the War should cease the moment he set foot inside this gate, and we would have a civilian game, an alpine expedition up the mountains.  You see the beech-root mountains.  There is the cave where we put up for the night.  There is a wonderful view from Bumpy Peak, over the sea, and right away to far-off lands.  Murray thought that when the expedition had caught a chamois it might turn into engineers prospecting for the building of a road up to Bumpy Peak, so that the soldiers might march up, and look out over the sea, and see—­very far off—­the fringes of the East that they had conquered, when they were young and not tired of War....”

She broke off and looked at Kew.

Anonyma stood a few paces away, gazing at her vanilla-ice reflection in the pond.

“I dare say you think us silly,” said the lady.  “I dare say you would think Murray a rotter if you met him.  It doesn’t matter much.  It doesn’t matter at all.  Nothing matters, because he will come home to-night.”

Kew fidgeted a moment, and then took the slate and wrote:  “I am very much afraid that all leave from abroad has been stopped this week.”

“Yes, I know,” said the mother, “I have been unhappy about that for some days.  But it doesn’t make any difference to Murray now.  You see, I heard last night that he was killed on Tuesday.  That’s why I know he will come, and I shall be waiting here.  Can’t you imagine them shouting as they get through, as they get through with being grown-up, shouting to each other as they run back to their childhood and their old pretences....”

After a moment she added, “That is the only sound that I shall ever hear now,—­the shouting of Murray to me as he runs home.”

It was in a sort of dream that Kew watched Anonyma go forward and take both the hands of the mother.  I suppose he knew that all that was superfluous, and that Murray would come home.

Anonyma said, “I am so sorry.  I am so sorry that we intruded.  You must forgive us.”

The mother of Murray did not hear, but she saw that sympathy was intended, and she nodded awkwardly, and a little severely.  I don’t think she had known that Anonyma was there.

Kew was not sorry that he had intruded.