t, that is not quite true. I was afraid
if I told you, and if you saw that I loved you at the same time, you
would not let it make any difference. I did not want you to spoil your
life, Dick."

"You dear girl!" he answered. "On Monday," he went on slowly, "I got my
orders for France. They are what I had been wanting and hoping for ever
since the War started, and yet, till they came, funnily enough, I never
realized what they meant. It seems strange to talk of death, or even to
think of it, when one is young and so horribly full of life as I am--yet
somehow this brings it near to me. It is not a question of facing it
with the courage of which the papers write such a lot; the truth is,
that one looks at it just for a moment, and then ordinary things push it
aside. Next to death, Joan, there is only one big thing in the world,
and that is Love. I had to see you again before I went; I had to find
out if you loved me. I wanted to hold you, so that the feel of you
should go with me in my dreams; to kiss you, so that the touch of your
lips should stay on mine, even if death did put a cold hand across them.
He is not going to"--he laughed suddenly and stood up, drawing her into
his arms--"your face shall go before me, dear, and in the end I shall
come home to you."

"What can I say?" Joan whispered, "You know I love you. Take me then,
Dick, and do as you wish with me."

They talked over the problem of his people and her people after they had
won back to a certain degree of sense, and Dick told Joan of how Mabel
had wished him luck just as he started out.

"You are going to be great friends," he said, "and Mother will come
round too, she always does."

"I am less afraid of your Mother than I am of Mabel," Joan confessed. "I
don't believe Mabel will ever like me."

Dick stayed to lunch and waited on afterwards to see Colonel Rutherford.
He had extracted a promise from Joan to marry him on Saturday by special
licence. He would have to go up to town to see about it himself the next
day; he wanted to leave everything arranged and settled for her first.
He and Joan walked down to the woods after lunch, and Joan tried to tell
him of her first year in London, and of some of the motives that had
driven her. He listened in silence; he was conscious more of jealousy
than anything else; he was glad when she passed on to talk of her later
struggles in London; of Shamrock House, of Rose Brent and Fanny.

"And that man I met at your p