‘Who cares for roughness!’ she returned angrily. ‘I’m not so weak that I must be nursed, Hugh, and kept from hearing the truth, like a fool or a child.’

‘I’m sorry, Terry,’ I said humbly. ‘Other people have lived in caves, hermits and robbers and fugitives from tyrants—what fools we’ll feel if there’s no need to go.’

‘What does it matter, then? You know as well as I do that war is coming.’

‘You don’t believe that I’m a coward?’ I asked anxiously.

‘I don’t think so, Hugh,’ she replied with a pale smile.

‘To be killed is nothing so dreadful,’ I went on, ‘if a man can see a just cause for dying. I think I could suffer pain—mutilation—’

‘For God’s sake stop!’ she cried in a shrill voice. Her eyes were wild and her face was haggard.

‘It’s this madness, this war, it kills and kills, and when the killing’s done, all that it accomplishes is to set the stage for more.’ I could not stop. I could not cease from speaking and tormenting myself with horror.

‘How much money have we?’ she asked with an effort to control her speech.

I looked at my pass-book.

‘Fifty-three pounds,’ I said.

‘I don’t think we should let our minds prey on things,’ she said. She drew a deep breath. The colour returned to her cheeks. ‘We believe that we are doing right. We aren’t willing to be mocked and ill-used and made the butt of fools and ruffians for doing right. Isn’t it simple?’

‘We should be willing—’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘We must arrange, we must think out the smallest details,’ she continued. ‘We have fifty-three pounds to spend.’

‘I’ll buy as much ammunition for the .22 as my permit will let me have,’ I declared. ‘It won’t be wasted at any rate, even if we stay at home.’

‘Stay at home!’ she broke in. ‘We’ll be leaving our house! Hugh, I never thought of that! we were happy in it.’

So we began to make our plans, to write down lists of what we would require, if we were to live in hiding, in the hills, out of reach of our enemies. The occupation of planning our life, away from the hazards and ills of common life, freed us to a certain extent from our preoccupation with these ills. While we were making lists of food and tools and clothing the threat of war receded a little, so that when our lists were completed, and we were in imagination already escaped, the immediate necessity for escape was no longer there to urge us to action, though Terry was anxious to begin buying those things we needed most.

But I grew loath, as time wore on and rumours became a commonplace of our lives, to spend our money against a contingency which might never arise.