There were days when they waited in despair for the end as foot by foot
the Germans crept nearer and nearer to the grim barrier of desperate
France.
Susan's deeds were in her spotless kitchen at Ingleside, but her
thoughts were on the hills around Verdun. "Mrs. Dr. dear," she would
stick her head in at Mrs. Blythe's door the last thing at night to
remark, "I do hope the French have hung onto the Crow's Wood today," and
she woke at dawn to wonder if Dead Man's Hill--surely named by some
prophet--was still held by the "poyloos." Susan could have drawn a map
of the country around Verdun that would have satisfied a chief of staff.
"If the Germans capture Verdun the spirit of France will be broken,"
Miss Oliver said bitterly.
"But they will not capture it," staunchly said Susan, who could not eat
her dinner that day for fear lest they do that very thing. "In the first
place, you dreamed they would not--you dreamed the very thing the
French are saying before they ever said it--'they shall not pass.' I
declare to you, Miss Oliver, dear, when I read that in the paper, and
remembered your dream, I went cold all over with awe. It seemed to me
like Biblical times when people dreamed things like that quite
frequently.
"I know--I know," said Gertrude, walking restlessly about. "I cling to
a persistent faith in my dream, too--but every time bad news comes it
fails me.
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