Lucy clenched and twisted her hands against each other as she walked. When she could not endure sitting still any longer, she had thrown the red scarf over her shoulders and left the house alone, not caring what her mother would say later. Now she was walking quickly and blindly through the snowy fields just outside the city, thinking about the soldiers who were just then—and not so far away but that she could hear the faintest noise of the big guns—fighting and dying to defend their country. Almost to the capital city the army had been forced back by the invaders, and if this battle was lost, everything would be lost with it. And there was nothing, nothing, nothing, she could do for the country she loved or for the soldiers who were giving even their lives to protect it and her. She dropped down beside a small brook at the roadside, put her hands over her face, and wept.