Page:Good Sports (1919).djvu/86

Rh You know how horribly afraid I used to be at home of queer noises at night which might prove to be burglars getting into the house, or a man shifting his position in the closet? Well, I'm no different. I'll be just the same when I get back again. There's such a lot of time at home for sitting idle, or lying idle, and imagining spooky things. It's the imagining that gets you 'jumpy.' The reason you don't get 'jumpy' here, when you ought to according to your former reputation, is because you're so terribly busy, or so terribly sleepy, and there's no chance for imagining things. I pray I may be one or the other when my first test for courage comes."

A fear which haunted Constance more than her doubts as to the real value of her usefulness, was that, in the face of actual terror, the poor stuff which she had so long persuaded herself she was made of, would be exposed. She would crumple up—fail somehow. She had heard of soldiers—men, tried and trained, who had lost their nerve at the first terrific noise of an attack.

She didn't realize when she wrote her letter to Adelaide that her test for courage was to come so soon. Scarcely a week later and the little group of French villages which the College Unit had been working so long to instill with fresh hope was again swept by war. The roar of