Susan could have drawn a map of the country around Verdun that would have satisfied a chief of staff . `` If the Germans capture Verdun the spirit of France will be broken , '' Miss Oliver said bitterly . `` But they will not capture it , '' staunchly said Susan , who could not eat her dinner that day for fear lest they do that very thing . `` In the first place , you dreamed they would not -- you dreamed the very thing the French are saying before they ever said it -- ` they shall not pass . ' I declare to you , Miss Oliver , dear , when I read that in the paper , and remembered your dream , I went cold all over with awe . It seemed to me like Biblical times when people dreamed things like that quite frequently . `` I know -- I know , '' said Gertrude , walking restlessly about . `` I cling to a persistent faith in my dream , too -- but every time bad news comes it fails me . Then I tell myself ` mere coincidence ' -- ` subconscious memory ' and so forth . '' `` I do not see how any memory could remember a thing before it was ever said at all , '' persisted Susan , `` though of course I am not educated like you and the doctor . I would rather not be , if it makes anything as simple as that so hard to believe . But in any case we need not worry over Verdun , even if the Huns get it . Joffre says it has no military significance . '' `` That old sop of comfort has been served up too often already when reverses came , '' retorted Gertrude . `` It has lost its power to charm . '' `` Was there ever a battle like this in the world before ? '' said Mr. Meredith , one evening in mid-April . `` It 's such a titanic thing we ca n't grasp it , '' said the doctor . `` What were the scraps of a few Homeric handfuls compared to this ? The whole Trojan war might be fought around a Verdun fort and a newspaper correspondent would give it no more than a sentence .
I am not XXXXX the confidence of the occult powers '' -- the doctor threw Gertrude a twinkle -- `` but I have a hunch that the fate of the whole war hangs on the issue of Verdun .
around at before if in like of over than to