which he had drawn up to the fire.

"Are you sure it boiled?" she said sceptically, as she sank into her
chair, her eyes dancing. "No man knows when a kettle boils."

"Try it! For five winters on the Saguenay, I made my own tea--and baked
my own bread. Men are better cooks than women when they give their minds
to it!" He brought her the cup, hot and fragrant, and she sipped it in
pure content while he stood smiling above her, leaning against the
mantelpiece.

"I wanted to see you," he said presently. "I've just got my marching
orders. Let's see. This is October. I shall have just a month. They've
found another man to take over this job, but he can't come till
November."

"And--peace?" said Rachel, looking up.

For Prince Max of Baden had just made his famous peace offer of October
5th, and even in rural Brookshire there was a thrilling sense of opening
skies, of some loosening of those iron bonds in which the world had lain
for four years.

"There will be no peace!" said Ellesborough with sudden energy, "so long
as there is a single German soldier left in Belgium or France!"

She saw him stiffen from head to foot--and thrilled to the flame of
avenging will that suddenly possessed him. The male looked out upon her,
kindling--by the old, old law--the woman in her.

"And if they don't accept that?"

"Then the war will go on," he said briefly, "and I shall be in for the
last lap!"

His colour changed a little. She put down her cup and bent over the fire,
warming her hands.

"If it does go on, it will be fiercer than ever."

"Very likely. If our fellows set the pace there'll be no dawdling.
America's white hot."

"And you'll be in it?"

"I hope so," he said quietly.

There was a pause. Then he, looking down upon her, felt a sudden and
passionate joy invade him--joy which was also longing--longing
irresistible. His mind had been wrestling with many scruples and
difficulties during the preceding days. Ought he to speak--on the eve of
departure--or not? Would she accept him? Or was all her manner and
attitude towards him merely the result of the new freedom of women?
Gradually but surely his mounting passion had idealized her. Not only
her personal ways and looks had become delightful to him, but the
honourable, independent self in him had come to feel a deep admiration
for and sympathy with her honourable independence, for these new powers
in women that made them so strong in spite of their weakness. She h