en so certain that she would
bid him leave her when she learned of his cowardice.

"But!..."

"Come home," she said. "You must be very tired, and cold!"

She put her arm in his, and drew him homewards, and he yielded to her
like a little child.

As they turned the corner of the apple-orchard, they could see lights
shining from the windows of the Manor, making a warm splash on the snow
that lay in drifts about the garden. There was a great quietness that
was broken now and then by the twittering of birds in the hedges as they
nestled for the night, or the cries made by the screech-owls, hooting in
the copse.

8

Mrs. Graham and Rachel had left them alone for a while, after dinner,
and as he sat, with her at his feet, fondling her hair, she spoke of her
feeling for him again.

"I've wondered sometimes," she said, "about your not joining ... it
seemed odd ... but I thought that perhaps there was something that would
explain it. I'd like you to join, Quinny ... I can't pretend that I
wouldn't ... but I don't feel that I ought to ask you to do so. If I
were a man I should join, I think, but I'm not a man, and I'm not likely
to have to suffer any of the things that a man has to suffer if he goes
... and so I don't say anything. I don't know why I'd like you to go ...
I ought to be glad that you haven't gone because I love you and I don't
want to lose you ... but all the same I'd like you to go. It isn't just
because other men have gone, and I don't feel any desire for revenge
because Ninian's been killed ... it's just because England's England, I
suppose...." She laughed a little nervously. "I can hardly expect you to
feel about England as I do. You're Irish!.."

"I've made that excuse for myself, Mary. Don't you make it for me. I
know inside me that the war isn't England's war ... it's the world's
war. John Marsh admits that much. He doesn't like English rule in
Ireland, but he doesn't pretend that German rule would be better ... not
seriously, anyhow. No, dear, I haven't that excuse. I know that if we
lose this war, the world will be a worse place to live in than it is. I
haven't any conscientious objection ... I don't feel that we are in the
wrong ... I feel that we're in the right ... that we never were so right
as we are. I'm simply anxious to save my skin. And even if I felt that
John Marsh were right in being anti-English, I don't feel that I have
any right to take up that attitude. England's done no wrong