Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/44

 Canadians. We'd been having our big losses together; almost everybody had some one who'd gone 'west'; and most of 'em couldn't realize it. London and all England, Miss Carew—was full of people trying to get in touch with fellows who'd been reported killed—just their names brought home on a government telegram and maybe a package of letters returned later."

"Yes; I know," Ethel said quietly, her breath catching a little.

"So it wasn't strange that a good many people were trying to find out more."

"You mean trying to trace men reported killed, who might merely have been missing?"

"Yes; they did that; but more generally they accepted the truth of the government report but tried to reach their dead."

"Oh!"

"You see 'Raymond' had recently been killed—"

"You mean—"

"Sir Oliver Lodge's son; yes, Miss Carew. His father and mother and friends were receiving messages which they published and which they were sure must be from him; and thousands of other people—not a crazy lot but scientists and lawyers and editors and judges and kings' counselors and hard-headed merchants and all sorts of Englishmen—were getting communications which they believed must be from their men who'd been killed."

"Oh!" Ethel murmured again. She did not hear what he said during the next moments. Her thoughts had gone from him to the letter he had shown her; she was rehearsing the words which referred to her father. "Oh!"