“Tell you to-morrow.”

As every one began to move toward the house, the Violinist remarked, “I was thinking of running up to Paris myself to-morrow.  Any one else want to go with me?” The Journalist said that he did, and the party broke up.  As they strolled toward the house the Lawyer was heard asking the Youngster, “What were the steps in the corridor?”

“Well,” replied the Youngster, “I suppose on the night that the team came home there must have been great excitement in the house—­every one running to and fro and—­”

But the Journalist’s shout of laughter stopped him.

The Youngster eyed him with shocked surprise.

“By Jupiter!” cried the Journalist.  “That is the darnedest ghost story I ever heard.  Everything and everybody walked but the dead man—­even the carriage.”

“That isn’t my fault,” said the Youngster, indignantly.

II

THE TRAINED NURSE’S STORY

THE SON OF JOSEPHINE

THE TALE OF A FOUNDLING

The house was very quiet next day.  All the men, except the Critic and the Sculptor, had made an early and hurried run to Paris.  So we saw little of each other until we gathered for dinner, and the conversation was calm—­in fact subdued.

The Doctor was especially quiet.  No one was really gay except the Youngster.  He talked of what he had seen in Paris—­the silent streets—­the moods of the women—­the sight of officers in khaki flying about in big touring cars—­and no one asked what had really taken them to town.

The Trained Nurse and I had walked to the nearest village, but we brought back little in the way of news.  The only interesting thing we saw was Monsieur le Cure talking to a handsome young peasant woman in the square before the church.  We heard her say, with a sob in her throat, “If my man does not come back, I’ll never say my prayers again.  I’ll never pray to a God who let this thing happen unless my man comes back.”

“She will, just the same,” said the Lawyer.  “One of the strangest features of such a catastrophe is that it steadies a race, especially the race convinced that it has right on its side.”

“It goes deeper than that,” said the Journalist.  “It strikes millions with the same pain, and they bear together what they could not have faced separately.”

“True,” remarked the Doctor, “and that is one reason why I have always mistrusted the effort of people outside the radius of disaster to help in anyway, except scientifically.”

“That is rather a cruel idea,” commented the Trained Nurse.

“Perhaps.  But I believe organized charity even of that sort is usually ineffective, and weakens the race that accepts it.  I believe victims of such disaster are healthier and come out stronger for facing it, dying, or surviving, as Fate decrees.”