“But—­if we love each other—­”

“It’s not that, either.  I used to feel that way.  A home, and some one to care about, and a little pleasure and work.”

“That ought to be enough, honey.”

He was terrified.  His anger was gone.  He placed an appealing hand on her arm, and as she stood there in the faint starlight the wonder of her once again got him by the throat.  She had that sort of repressed eagerness, that look of being poised for flight, that had always made him feel cheap and unworthy.

“Isn’t that enough, honey?” he repeated.

“Not now,” she said, her eyes turned toward the east.  “These are great days, Harvey.  They are greater and more terrible than any one can know who has not been there.  I’ve been there and I know.  I haven’t the right to all this peace and comfort when I know how things are going over there.”

Down the quiet street of the little town service was over.  The last hymn had been sung.  Through the open windows came the mellow sound of the minister’s voice in benediction, too far away to be more than a tone, like a single deep note of the organ.  Sara Lee listened.  She knew the words he was saying, and she listened with her eyes turned to the east: 

“The peace of God that passeth all understanding
be and abide with you all, forevermore.  Amen.”

Sara Lee listened, and from the step below her Harvey watched her with furtive, haggard eyes.  He had not heard the benediction.

“The peace of God!” she said slowly.  “There is only one peace of God, Harvey, and that is service.  I am going back.”

“Service!” he scoffed.  “You are going back to him!”

“I’m afraid he is not there any more.  I am going back to work.  But if he is there—­”

Harvey slid the ring into his pocket.  “What if he’s not there,” he demanded bitterly.  “If you think, after all this, that I’m going to wait, on the chance of your coming back to me, you’re mistaken.  I’ve been a laughing stock long enough.”

In the light of her new decision Sara Lee viewed him for the first time with the pitiless eyes of women who have lost a faith.  She saw him for what he was, not deliberately cruel, not even unkindly, but selfish, small, without vision.  Harvey was for his own fireside, his office, his little family group.  His labor would always be for himself and his own.  Whereas Sara Lee was, now and forever, for all the world, her hands consecrated to bind up its little wounds and to soothe its great ones.  Harvey craved a cheap and easy peace.  She wanted no peace except that bought by service, the peace of a tired body, the peace of the little house in Belgium where, after days of torture, weary men found quiet and ease and the cheer of the open door.

XXIX

Late in October Sara Lee went back to the little house of mercy; went unaccredited, and with her own money.  She had sold her bit of property.