It was always a silent place and now its stillness seemed even added to by the one sound which broke it--the sound of sobbing--sobbing--sobbing.
It had been going on for some time.

There had stolen through the narrow trodden pathway a dark slight figure and this had dropped upon the ground under a large tree which was one of a group whose branches had made a few months ago a canopy of green where birds had built nests and where one nightingale had sung night after night to the moon.
Later--Robin had said to herself--she would go to the cottage, and she would sit upon the hearth and lay her head on Mrs.Bennett's knee and they would cling together and sob and talk of the battlefields and the boys lying dead there.

But she had no thought of saying any other thing to her, because there was nothing left to say.

She had said nothing to Dr.Redcliff; she had only sat listening to him and feeling her eyes widening as she tried to follow and understand what he was saying in such a grave, low-toned cautious way--as if he himself were almost afraid as he went on.

What he said would once have been strange and wonderful, but now it was not, because wonder had gone out of the world.