the first rank was the boy Basil, file-leader of his squad, swinging proudly, his handsome face serious and fixed, his eyes turning to right nor left—­seeing not his mother, proud, white, tearless; nor Crittenden, with a lump of love in his throat; nor even little Phyllis—­her pride in her boy-soldier swept suddenly out of her aching heart, her eyes brimming, and her handkerchief at her mouth to keep bravely back the sob that surged at her lips.  The station at last, and then cheers and kisses and sobs, and tears and cheers again, and a waving of hands and flags and handkerchiefs—­a column of smoke puffing on and on toward the horizon—­the vanishing perspective of a rear platform filled with jolly, reckless, waving, yelling soldiers, and the tragedy of the parting was over.

How every detail of earth and sky was seared deep into the memory of the women left behind that afternoon—­as each drove slowly homeward:  for God help the women in days of war!  The very peace of heaven lay upon the earth.  It sank from the low, moveless clouds in the windless sky to the sunlit trees in the windless woods, as still as the long shadows under them.  It lay over the still seas of bluegrass—­dappled in woodland, sunlit in open pasture—­resting on low hills like a soft cloud of bluish-gray, clinging closely to every line of every peaceful slope.  Stillness everywhere.  Still cattle browsing in the distance; sheep asleep in the far shade of a cliff, shadowing the still stream; even the song of birds distant, faint, restful.  Peace everywhere, but little peace in the heart of the mother to whose lips was raised once more the self-same cup that she had drained so long ago.  Peace everywhere but for Phyllis climbing the stairs to her own room and flinging herself upon her bed in a racking passion of tears.  God help the women in the days of war!  Peace from the dome of heaven to the heart of the earth, but a gnawing unrest for Judith, who walked very slowly down the gravelled walk and to the stiles, and sat looking over the quiet fields.  Only in her eyes was the light not wholly of sadness, but a proud light of sacrifice and high resolve.  Crittenden was coming that night.  He was going for good now; he was coming to tell her good-by; and he must not go—­to his death, maybe—­without knowing what she had to tell him.  It was not much—­it was very little, in return for his life-long devotion—­that she should at least tell him how she had wholly outgrown her girlish infatuation—­she knew now that it was nothing else—­for the one man who had stood in her life before him, and that now there was no other—­lover or friend—­for whom she had the genuine affection that she would always have for him.  She would tell him frankly—­she was a grown woman now—­because she thought she owed that much to him—­because, under the circumstances, she thought it was her duty; and he would not misunderstand her, even if he really did not have quite the old feeling for her.  Then, recalling what he had said on the drive, she laughed softly.  It was preposterous.  She understood all that.  He had acted that little part so many times in by-gone years!  And she had always pretended to take him seriously, for she would have given him mortal offence had she not; and she was pretending to take him seriously now.  And, anyhow, what could he misunderstand?  There was nothing to misunderstand.