But soon there came from a room upstairs the sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress.
And dropping the paper, she hurried away.
Roger continued his reading.
Deborah came.

She saw the paper Edith had dropped, picked it up and sat down to read, and there were a few moments of absolute silence.

Then Roger heard a quivering breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and startled, moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending way.
"Pretty serious business," he growled.
"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.
And they resumed their reading.
In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war like a whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt their own small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a storm.

And while their minds--at first dazed and stunned by the thought of such appalling armies, battles, death and desolation--slowly cleared and they strove to think, and Roger thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in cities and in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes in panic everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending, tottering--war broke out in Europe.
"What is this going to mean to me ?" Millions of people were asking that.

And so did Roger and Deborah.