he lifted herself…so high that her helpless body seemed to hang limp…” (467). The denouement is a culmination of feelings and emotions burgeoning into an outcry by Mrs. Gearson, ‘“Take it off, take it off before I tear it from your back!’” (467). Mrs. Gearson is grieving for her son. She knows Editha did not think that George would die; ‘“No, girls don’t; women don’t…They think they’ll come marching back…if it’s an empty sleeve…they’re so much the prouder of them…”’ Nevertheless, she blames Editha for her loss, “I suppose you would have been glad to die…When you sent him…”’ (467). There is a feeling that suggests that there is a lesson in all this, yet Editha misses it entirely; “ I think…‘she wasn’t quite right in her mind; and so did papa’” (467). She still receives social kudos when, at the last, her portrait artist expresses sympathy towards Editha; ‘“To think of having such a tragedy in your life!’” (467). When she realizes that she has gotten what she wanted after all, she immediately begins to feel better; “A light broke upon Editha in the darkness which she felt she had been without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months…she rose from groveling in shame and self pity, and began to live again in the ideal.” (467). Although this is actually an over dramatization, on the characters part, artfully committed by the author; we (the readers) discover the reason for this is because the author tells us that the artist, whom Editha is speaking with at the end of the story; also believed in the war and that she supports Editha’s position; ‘“…when you consider the good this war has done—how much it has done for the country…And when you had come all the way out ther...
