"If what? Tell me who--if you think it fair of me to ask." "Can't you guess?" "There can be no one, except--I say, Nancy, you can't mean Nancarrow?" She nodded her head. "But, Nancy--that--that----" "Don't, please. I loved him--at least I thought I did, and--and we were engaged. If--if--that is, but for the war, he would have spoken to father by this time, and--and everything would have been made known. When--he played the coward, I found out my mistake, and I told him so." "Great heavens, yes! It was, of course, only a foolish fancy. A girl like you could never seriously care for that class of man." "I am ashamed of myself when I think of him," and Nancy's voice was hoarse as she spoke. "In a way I feel contaminated. If there is anything under heaven that I despise, it's a coward. I want to forget that I--I ever thought of him. I want to drive him from my mind." "And that is what keeps you from promising me anything. But surely you do not care for him now. Why--why, you couldn't! The fellow who could show the white feather at such a time as this, and then try and cover up his cowardice by all that religious humbug, is not of your class, Nancy. He's a rank outsider. I'm sorry I was ever friends with him. Your father told me he was mad with himself for ever allowing him inside the house." "That's why I'm so ashamed of----" "We'll drive him from our minds, Nancy. There, he's done with. He's not worthy of a thought. You owe it to yourself, to your name, your country, to banish it from your mind." For the moment Nancy was angry with Trevanion. She wanted to defend Bob. She wanted to tell him that Bob was braver than he. But she could not. She had spoken truly when she said that she was ashamed of herself for having allowed herself to think of him. "Give me even the shadow of a promise," went on Trevanion, "and all thought of him will be for ever gone." "No," said Nancy, "I can promise nothing--now." "But will you try--to--to care for me?" "Yes," said the girl, "I'll promise that, if--if it will be of any comfort to you." "I don't fear now," cried Trevanion. "Everything will be right. What you have been telling me is nothing--just a passing fancy which will be--nothing. Give me a kiss, Nancy, and----" "No," said the girl, and she shrank back almost instinctively, "not that; but the other--yes, I'll promise to try." "I'm the happiest man in England with only that," laughed Trevanion; "what shall I be when--when the war is over, and I come back to claim my own. I shall find you waiting for me, shan't I?" "I--I don't know. I may not come back. It what the papers say is true, even the nurses are not safe." "But have you really settled to go abroad as a nurse?" "I thought you understood that when you were here last. I go to London the day after to-morrow, and in a week from now I expect to be in one of the French hospitals." "I had hoped you'd given up that," said the Captain moodily.