He came up with her at a cross-road, and threw her a look of enquiry.

‘You have been to the village?’

‘To the hospital.  Thirty fresh wounded arrived last night.’

‘I have just seen Chicksands,’ said the Squire abruptly.  ’Arthur tells him the German attack must be launched in a week or two, and may come any day.  A million men, probably, thrown against us.’

‘So—­the next few months will decide,’ said Elizabeth, shuddering.

‘My God!—­why did we ever go into this war!’ cried the man beside her suddenly, in a low, stifled voice.  She glanced at him in astonishment.  The new excuses, the new tenderness for him in her heart made themselves heard.

‘It was for honour,’ she breathed—­’for freedom!’

‘Words—­just words.  They don’t stop bombs!’

But there was nothing truculent in the tone.

‘You had a line from Mr. Desmond this morning?’

‘Yes—­a post card.  He was all right.’

Silence dropped between them.  They walked on through the beautiful wooded park.  Carpets of primroses ran beside them, and masses of wild cherry blossoms were beginning to show amid the beeches.  Elizabeth was vaguely conscious of beauty, of warm air, of heavenly sun.  But the veil upon the face of all nations was upon her eyes also.

When they reached the house, the Squire said,

’I looked up the passage in the Persae that occurred to me yesterday.  Will you come and take it down?’

They went into the library together.  On a special table in front of the Squire’s desk there stood a magnificent Greek vase of the early fifth century B.C.  A king—­Persian, from his dress—­was sitting in a chair of state, and before him stood a small man apparently delivering a message. [Greek:  Aggelos] was roughly written over his head.

The Squire walked up and down with a text of the Persae in his hand.

’"This vase,” he dictated, “may be compared with one signed by Xenophantos, in the Paris collection, the subject of which is the Persian king, hunting.  Here we have a Persian king, identified by his dress, apparently receiving a message from his army.  We may illustrate it by the passage in the Persae of AEschylus, where Atossa receives from a messenger the account of the battle of Salamis—­a passage which contains the famous lines describing the Greek onslaught on the Persian fleet: 

’"’Then might you hear a mighty shout arise—­

’"’Go, ye sons of Hellas!—­free your fathers, free your children and your wives, the temples of your gods, and the tombs of your ancestors.  For now is all at stake!...’

’"We may recall also the final summing-up by the [Greek:  aggelos] of the Persian defeat—­

’"‘Never, on a single day, was there so great a slaying of men.’"’

Elizabeth took down the words, first in Greek and then in English.  They rang in her ears, long after she had transcribed them.  The Squire moved up and down in silence, absorbed apparently in the play which he went on reading.