"I often wonder what things will be like when the war is over," Mrs. Graham said. "Men can't live like that without some permanent effect. Their habits will be rougher, more elementary, I suppose, and they'll value life less highly. I don't see how they can help it. You can't see men killed in that careless way ... and feel any sanctity about life. I think life will be harsher for women after the war than it was before...."

She remembered that Ninian's father had always declared that the Franco-German War had brutalised Germany.

"He'd lived in Germany for a long while," she said, "and people admitted that Germany had changed after the War ... grown coarser and leas kindly!..."

They talked on in this strain until the clock chimed twelve. The storm still blew over the house, but the rain had ceased, and when they looked out of the window, they could see a rift in the clouds, through which the moon tore her way.

"Good-night, Henry," she said, bending towards him, and he kissed her cheek and then opened the door for her.

"Good-night!" he said.