"You are braver than I--" slowly.

"No. You'd feel the same way, dear child, about Derry."

"No. I should not. I shouldn't feel that way at all. I should
die--if I lost Derry--"

Light leaped in her lover's eyes. But he shook his head. "She'd bear
it like other brave women. She doesn't know herself, Margaret."

"None of us do. Do you suppose that the wives and mothers of France
ever dreamed that it would be their fortitude which would hold the
enemy back?"

"Do you think it did, really?" Jean asked her.

"I know it. It has been a barrier as tangible as a wall of rock."

"You put an awful responsibility upon the women."

"Why not? They are the mothers of men."

They sat down after that; and Jean listened frozenly while Margaret and
Derry talked. The children in front of the fire were looking at the
pictures in a book which Derry had brought.

Teddy, stretched at length on the rug in his favorite attitude, was
reading to Margaret-Mary. His mop of bright hair, his flushed cheeks,
his active gestures spoke of life quick in his young body--.