“I think she could,” answered Joan, “if she would pull herself together. It’s her lack of will-power that’s the trouble.” He held her to him for what seemed a long while. There was strength in his arms, in spite of the bowed shoulders and white hair.!

“Don’t tease her,” said Madge. “She’s having an evening off.” “I wonder how many of my ideals will be left to me,” sighed Joan. “I always used to regard the Press as the modern pulpit.”

A Conscientious Objector. She might have guessed it. A “Conchy,” as they would call him in the Press: all the spiteful screamers who had never risked a scratch, themselves, denouncing him as a coward. The local Dogberrys of the tribunals would fire off their little stock of gibes and platitudes upon him, propound with owlish solemnity the new Christianity, abuse him and condemn him, without listening to him. Jeering mobs would follow him through the streets. More than once, of late, she had encountered such crowds made up of shrieking girls and foul-mouthed men, surging round some white-faced youngster while the well-dressed passers-by looked on and grinned. Madge laughed. “Mixing with so many brainy people, perhaps,” she suggested; “and wondering what’s become of their souls.” And suddenly something lying hidden there leaped to life within her brain. A mad desire surged hold of her to rise and shout defiance at those three thousand pairs of hostile eyes confronting her. She clutched at the arms of her chair and so kept her seat. The pibroch ended with its wild sad notes of wailing, and slowly the mist cleared from her eyes, and the stage was empty. A strange hush had fallen on the house.