I remember I said
it; I cannot tell why, for I _did_ know. I knew that Preston and
Ransom were both likely to be in the struggle, even if Ransom
had been at the moment at the opposite side of the world. But
then Thorold roused up and began to talk. He talked to divert
us, I think. He told us of things that concerned himself and
his class personally, giving details to which we listened
eagerly; and he went on from them to things and people in the
public line, of which and of whom neither Miss Cardigan nor I
had known the thousandth part so much before. We sat and
listened, Miss Cardigan often putting in a question, while the
warm still glow of the firelight shed over us and all the room
its assurance of peace and quiet, woven and compounded of
life-long associations. Thorold sat before us and talked, and
we looked at him and listened in the fire-shine; and my
thoughts made swift sideway flights every now and then from
this peace and glow of comfort, and from Thorold's talk, to
the changes of the camp, and the possible coming strife;
spectres of war, guns and swords, exposure and wounds — and
sickness — and the battlefield — what could I tell? and Miss
Cardigan's servant put another lump of coal on the fire, and
Thorold presently broke it, and the jet of illumination sprang
forth, mocking and yet revealing in its sweet home glow my
visions of terror.
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