"Good-afternoon, Mr. Lessing," said Graham, "and thank you for all you've
said."

In the street he walked slowly, and he thought of all Mr. Lessing had not
said as well as all he had. After all, he had spoken sound sense, and
there was Hilda. He couldn't lose Hilda, and if the old man turned out
obstinate--well, it would be all but impossible to get her. Probably
things were not as bad as he had imagined. Very likely it would all be
over by Christmas. If so, it was not much use throwing everything up.
Perhaps he could word the letter to the Bishop a little differently. He
turned over phrases all the way home, and got them fairly pat. But it was
a busy evening, and he did not write that night.

Monday always began as a full day, what with staff meeting and so on, and
its being Bank Holiday did not make much difference to them. But in the
afternoon he was free to read carefully the Sunday papers, and was
appalled with the swiftness of the approach of the universal cataclysm.
After Evensong and supper, then, he got out paper and pen and wrote,
though it took much longer than he thought it would. In the end he begged
the Bishop to remember him if it was really necessary to find more
chaplains, and expressed his readiness to serve the Church and the
country when he was wanted. When it was written, he sat long over the
closed envelope and smoked a couple of pipes. He wondered if men were
killing each other, even now, just over the water. He pictured a battle
scene, drawing from imagination and what he remembered of field-days at
Aldershot. He shuddered a little as he conceived himself crawling through
heather to reach a man in the front line who had been hit, while the
enemies' guns on the crest opposite were firing as he had seen them fire
in play. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be hit.