Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/77

 Walter concluded in a burst of passionate bitterness.

“Even if you were strong enough, you oughtn’t to go,” sobbed Rilla. “ What would mother do? She’s breaking her heart over Jem. It would kill her to see you both go.”

“Oh, I’m not going—don’t worry. I tell you I’m afraid to go—afraid. I don’t mince the matter to myself. It’s a relief to own up even to you, Rilla. I wouldn’t confess it to anybody else—Nan and Di would despise me. But I hate the whole thing—the horror, the pain, the ugliness. War isn’t a khaki uniform or a drill parade—everything I’ve read in old histories haunts me. I lie awake at night and see things that have happened—see the blood and filth and misery of it all. And a bayonet charge! If I could face the other things I could never face that. It turns me sick to think of it—sicker even to think of giving it than receiving it—to think of thrusting a bayonet through another man.” Walter writhed and shuddered. “I think of these things all the time—and it doesn’t seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them. They laugh and talk about ‘potting Huns’! But it maddens me to see them in the khaki. And they think I’m grumpy because I'm not fit to go.”

Walter laughed bitterly. It is not a nice thing to feel yourself a coward. But Rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his shoulder. She was so glad he didn’t want to go—for just one minute she had been horribly frightened. And it was so nice to have Walter confiding his troubles to her—to her, not Di. She didn't feel so lonely and superfluous any longer.

“Don’t you despise me, Rilla-my-Rilla?” asked