tle later he reverted to the topic of the morning and
said, "As things are now, I really don't see why we shouldn't be married
on the 28th--privately, you know," her answer was, "What did you think
of papa?"

Though he raised his eyebrows in surprise that she should introduce the
subject, he managed to say, "He seems pretty game."

"He does; but I dare say he isn't as game as he looks. There's a good
deal before him still."

"If we're married on the 28th he'd have one care the less."

"Because I should be taken off his hands. I'm afraid that's not the way
to look at it. The real fact is that he'd have nobody to help him."

"I've two months' leave. You could do a lot for him in that time."

She bent over her piece of work. It was the sofa-cushion she had laid
aside on the day when she learned from Davenant that her father's
troubles were like Jack Berrington's. They had come back for coffee to
the rustic seat on the lawn. For the cups and coffee service a small
table had been brought out beside which she sat. Ashley had so far
recovered his sang-froid as to be able to enjoy a cigar.

"Would you be very much hurt," she asked, without raising her head, "if
I begged you to go back to England without our being married at all?"

"Oh, but I say!"

The protest was not over-strong. He was neither shocked nor surprised. A
well-bred woman, finding herself in such trouble as hers, would
naturally offer him some way of escape from it.

"You see," she went on, "things are so complicated already that if we
got married we should complicate them more. There's so much to be
done--as to papa--and this house--and the future--of the kind of thing
you don't know anything about. They're sordid things, too, that you'd be
wasted on if you tried to learn them."

He smiled indulgently. "And so you're asking me--a soldier!--to run
away."

"No, to let me do it. It's so--so impossible that I can't face it."

"Oh, nonsense!" He spoke with kindly impatience. "Don't you love me? You
said just now--in the dining-room--when--"

"Yes, I know; I did say that. But, you see--we _must_ consider it--love
can't be the most important thing in the world for either you or me."

"I understand. You mean to say it's duty. Very good. In that case, my
duty is as plain as a pikestaff."

"Your duty to stand by me?"

"I should be a hound if I didn't do it."

"And I should feel myself a common adventuress if I were to let you."

"Oh--I say!"

His p