He and a few others had been picked up, but
the sights that he had seen were haunting him. He felt sure his uncle
would agree that he ought to be helping, and this was work for England he
could do with all his heart. He hoped he was not leaving his uncle in
the lurch; but he did not think the war would last long, and he would
soon be back.
"Dear lad," said her father, "he would take the most dangerous work that
he could find. But I wish he hadn't been quite so impulsive. He could
have been of more use helping me with this War Office contract. I
suppose he never got my letter, telling him about it."
In his letter to Joan he went further. He had received his uncle's
letter, so he confided to her. Perhaps she would think him a crank, but
he couldn't help it. He hated this killing business, this making of
machinery for slaughtering men in bulk, like they killed pigs in Chicago.
Out on the free, sweet sea, helping to keep it clean from man's
abominations, he would be away from it all.
She saw the vision of him that night, as, leaning from her window, she
looked out beyond the pines: the little lonely ship amid the waste of
waters; his beautiful, almost womanish, face, and the gentle dreamy eyes
with their haunting suggestion of a shadow.
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