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Gather all your strength. You must live for Morris and for the children, and even for me."

While Anna talked, Gertrude had kept her head buried in her hands as though shielding herself from a merciless bombardment. Now she got up, went over to the bed, and stretched out on it. When the grey light of dawn began to glimmer she arose, pushed the sheet back, and watched the lifting mists of the night.

Her eyes were red, her face a greyish green. She leaned against the window-frame and let her gaze lose itself in the shimmering distances of the sky. Suddenly another siren-blast splintered the silence, and even before they had time to throw themselves on the floor, there came a sound of shattered glass from a nearby explosion.

Her hands went to her body instinctively as if she, too, were a part of the shattered world, seeking to gather her pieces together, the scattered fragments of her life. But then her thoughts moved from her body to the bodies of her children; she must rescue them, give them to Anna for safekeeping, and through their ransomed lives, she herself would be snatched from death, if she were fated to die in the flesh. Then she prayed inwardly for Morris, for Anna, for all people, and last of all she prayed for herself.

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