Jean, who was ready for church and waiting, warned, “You’d better not try to give an answer to that, Margaret, there isn’t any.”

Teddy ignored her.  “How would they stop, Mother?”

“Well, they’d just stop, dear—­”

“Would they say they were sorry?”

Would William of Prussia ever be sorry?

“Can God stop it, Mother?”

Margaret wrenched her mind away from the picture which his words had painted for her, the Kaiser on his knees! Miserere mei, Deus—­

With quick breath, “Yes, dear.”

“Then why doesn’t He stop it, Mother?”

Why?  Why?  Why?  Older voices were asking that question in agony.

“He will do it in His own good time, dearest.  Perhaps the world has a lesson to learn.”

With Teddy walking ahead with nurse, Jean proclaimed to Margaret, “I shan’t pray for them.”

“I know how you feel.”

“Shall you?”

“Yes,” desperately, “I must.”

“Why must you?”

“Because of—­Win,” Margaret said simply.  In her widow’s black, with her veil giving her height and dignity, she had never been more beautiful.  “Because of Win, I must.  There are wives in Germany who suffer as I suffer—­who are not to blame.  There are children, like my children, asking the same questions—.  This drive has seemed to me like the slaughter of sheep, with a great Wolf behind them, a Wolf without mercy, sending them down to destruction, to—­death—­”

“And the Wolf—?”

Margaret raised her hand and let it drop, “God knows.”

And now soldiers were being rushed overseas.  Trains swept across the land loaded with men who gazed wistfully at the peaceful towns as they passed through, or chafed impotently when, imprisoned in day coaches, they were side-tracked outside of great cities.

And on the battle line those droves and droves of gray sheep were driven down and down—­to death—­by the Wolf.

The war was coming closer to America.  A look of care settled on the faces of men and women who had, hitherto, taken things lightly.  Fathers, who had been very sure that the war would end before their sons should go to France, faced the fact that the end was not in sight, and that the war would take its toll of the youth of America.  Mothers, who had not been sure of anything, but had hidden their fears in their hearts, stopped reading the daily papers.  Wives, who had looked upon the camp experiences of their husbands as a rather great adventure, knew now that there might be a greater adventure with a Dark Angel.  The tram-sheds in great cities were crowded with anxious relatives who watched the troops go through, clutching at the hope of a last glimpse of a beloved face, a few precious moments in which to say farewell.

Yes, the war was coming near!

Derry wrote that he might go at any moment, but hoped for a short furlough.  It was on this hope that Jean lived.  She worked tirelessly, making the much-needed surgical dressings.  When Emily tried to get her to rest, Jean would shake her head.