Walter was at Redmond and his letters to Rilla were anything but cheerful.

She never opened one without a dread tugging at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted.

His unhappiness made her unhappy.

She wanted to put her arm round him and comfort him, as she had done that day in Rainbow Valley.

She hated everybody who was responsible for Walter's unhappiness.
"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as she sat alone in Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go yet--and if he does I just can't bear it." Walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white feather.
"I deserved it, Rilla.