His father died shortly after Hollister married.  He had left his son property aggregating several thousand dollars and a complicated timber business disorganized by his sudden death.  Hollister was young, sanguine, clever in the accepted sense of cleverness.  He had married for love,—­urged thereto by a headlong, unquestioning, uncritical passion.  But there were no obstacles.  His passion was returned.  There was nothing to make him ponder upon what a devastating, tyrannical force this emotion which he knew as love might become, this blind fever of the blood under cover of which nature works her ends, blandly indifferent to the consequences.

Hollister was happy.  He was ambitious.  He threw himself with energy into a revival of his father’s business when it came into his hands.  His needs expanded with his matrimonial obligations.  Considered casually—­which was chiefly the manner of his consideration—­his future was the future of a great many young men who begin life under reasonably auspicious circumstances.  That is to say, he would be a success financially and socially to as great an extent as he cared to aspire.  He would acquire wealth and an expanding influence in his community.  He would lead a tolerably pleasant domestic existence.  He would be proud of his wife’s beauty, her charm; he would derive a soothing contentment from her affection.  He would take pleasure in friendships.  In the end, of course, at some far-off, misty mile-post, he would begin to grow old.  Then he would die in a dignified manner, full of years and honors, and his children would carry on after him.

Hollister failed to reckon with the suavities of international diplomacy, with the forces of commercialism in relation to the markets of the world.

The war burst upon and shattered the placidity of his existence very much as the bombs from the first Zeppelins shattered the peace and security of London and Paris.

He reacted to the impetus of the German assault as young men of his class uniformly reacted.  There was in Hollister’s mind no doubt or equivocation about what he must do.  But he did not embark upon this adventure joyously.  He could not help weighing the chances.  He understood that in this day and age he was a fortunate man.  He had a great deal to lose.  But he felt that he must go.  He was not, however, filled with the witless idea that service with the Expeditionary Force was to be an adventure of some few months, a brief period involving some hardships and sharp fighting, but with an Allied Army hammering at the gates of Berlin as a grand finale.  The slaughter of the first encounters filled him with the conviction that he should put his house in order before he entered that bloody arena out of which he might not emerge.

So that when he crossed the Channel the first time he had disentangled himself from his business at a great loss, in order to have all his funds available for his wife in case of the ultimate disaster.