he
had not spoken.

"Why? Yes, I'll tell you," he said with a reckless laugh. "I'll
tell you why I wear a new name. It's because I love my old
one--and the mother who bore it--and from whom I received it! And
it's because I won't risk disgracing it. You have asked, and
_that's_ why! Because--_I'm afraid in battle_!--if you want to
know!--afraid of getting hurt--wounded--killed! I don't know what
I might do; I don't _know_! And if the world ever sees Private
Ormond running away, they'll never know it was Constance Berkley's
son. And _that's_ why I changed my name!"

"W-what?" she faltered. Then, revolted. "It is not true! You are
_not_ afraid!"

"I tell you I am," he repeated with a mirthless laugh. "Don't you
suppose I ought to know? I want to get out of bullet range every
time I'm shot at. And--if anybody ever turns coward, I prefer that
it should be trooper Ormond, not trooper Berkley. And that is the
truth, Ailsa."

She was scarcely able to suppress her anger now. She looked at
him, flushed, excited, furious.

"Why do you say such untruthful things to me! Who was it that
fairly kicked his fellow troopers into charging infantry with
nothing but lances against bullets?"

Amazed for a second, he burst into an abrupt laugh that rang
harshly in the room.

"Who told you such cock-and-bull stories, Ailsa?"

"Didn't you do it? _Isn't_ it true?"

"Do what? Do what the Government pays me for doing? Yes, I
happened to come up to the scratch that time. But I was scared,
every inch of me--if you really want the truth."

"But--you _did_ it?"

He laughed again, harshly, but apparently puzzled by her attitude.

She came nearer, paler in her suppressed excitement.

"Private Ormond," she faltered, "the hour that you fail under fire
is the hour when I--shall be able to--forget--you.
Not--until--then."

Neither moved. The slow, deep colour mounted to the roots of his
hair; but she was white as death.

"Ailsa."

"Yes."

And suddenly he had dropped to one knee, and the hem of her gray
garb was against his lips--and it was a thing of another age that
he did, there on one knee at her feet, but it became him as it had
become his ancestors. And she saw it, and, bending, laid her slim
hands on his head.

After a long silence, her hands still resting on his dark hair, she
found voice enough to speak.

"I know you now."

And, as he made no answer:

"It is there, in you--all that I believed