t in her
words. "And I love you, Quinny!" she said. "I can't love you more than
I've always loved you!..."

"Could you love me less than you've always loved me?" he asked, turning
and standing before her so that his eyes were looking into hers.

"I don't know," she answered. "I've never tried!"

He did not say any more for a few moments, but stood with his hands on
her shoulders, looking steadily into her eyes, while she looked steadily
into his. Then he took his hands from her shoulders and drew her into
the shelter of his arms, and kissed her, letting his lips lie long on
hers.

"What do you want to tell me?" she said in a whisper.

7

Then he told her.

"I wrote to you when I was at Ballymartin," he said, "but I did not
post the letter. I brought it with me. I meant to destroy it because I
thought it was too emotional, and then I thought that perhaps I had
better let you see it so that you might judge me, not just as I am now,
talking to you quietly like this, but as I was when I wrote it!"

He took the letter from his pocket and gave it to her.

"I had to tell you, Mary. I couldn't marry you without letting you know
what kind of man I am. I'm too frightened to go to the Front. At the
bottom of all my excuses, that's the truth."

She did not speak, but stood with his letter in her hands, turning it
over....

"I've tried to persuade myself," he went on, "that I'm of special
account, that I ought not to go to the war, but I know very well that in
a time like this, no one is of special account. Gilbert said something
like that at Tre'Arrdur Bay when I told him that his life was of greater
value than the life of ... of a clerk. I suppose, the finer a man is,
the more willing he is to take his share in war, and if that's true, I'm
not really a fine man. I'm simply a coward, hoarding up my life in a
cupboard, like a miser hoarding up his money. I should have been the
first to spend myself ... like Gilbert and Ninian. I'm the only one of
the Improved Tories who hasn't gone! ... Oh, I couldn't offer you
myself, dear. I'm too mean ... I'm a failure in fineness.... I used to
feel contempt for Jimphy Jayne ... but he didn't hesitate for a moment.
It never entered his head not to go. The moment the war began, Gilbert
enlisted, and I suppose Ninian must have left that railway the very
minute he heard the news. I was never quite ... never quite on their
level, Mary, and I don't suppose I ever shall be now!"

She