Desmond stepped back a pace, incredulous anger in his eyes. "Evelyn! Are you crazy? It's not the habit of British officers to sneak behind their wives when they're wanted at the front. It comes hard on you: but it's the price a woman pays for marrying a soldier and there's no shirking it----" For answer she clung to his hand, pressing it close against her heart. Instinctively she understood the power of her weakness, and exercised it to the full. Perhaps, also, an undefined fear of Kresney gave her courage to persist; and the least mention of the man's name at that instant might have averted many things. "Only this time, please," she murmured, bringing the beseeching softness of her eyes and lips very close to his set face. "You'll be sorry afterwards if you leave me alone--just now." "Why just now? Besides, you won't be alone. You will have Honor." "Yes. But I want you. It has all been so lovely since Christmas. Theo--darling,--I _can't_ let you go, and--and perhaps be killed by those horrid Afridis. Every one knows how brave you are. They would never think you shirked the fighting. And Major Wyndham would do anything you asked him. Will you--_will_ you?" Desmond's mouth hardened to a dogged line, and he drew a little away from her; because her entreaty and the disturbing nearness of her face made resistance harder than he dared allow her to guess. "My dear little woman, you haven't the smallest notion what you are asking of me. I never bargained for throwing up active service on your account; and I'll not give the fellows a chance to insult you by flinging marriage in my teeth." "That means--you insist on going?" "My dear--I can do nothing else." She threw his hand from her with a choking sob. "Very well, then, go--go! I know, now, that you don't really--care, in your heart--whatever you may say." And turning again to the mantelpiece, she laid her head upon her arms. For a few moments Desmond stood regarding her, a great pain and tenderness in his eyes. "It is rather cruel of you to put it that way, Ladybird," he said gently. "Can't you see that this isn't a question--of caring, but simply of doing my duty? Won't you try and help me, instead of making things harder for us both?" He passed his hand caressingly over her hair, and a little shiver of misery went through her at this touch. "It's all very well to talk grandly about duty," she answered in a smothered voice. "And it's no use pretending to love me--when you won't do anything I ask. But--you _want_ to go." Desmond sighed, and instinctively glanced across at Honor for a confirmation of his resolve not to let tenderness undermine his sense of right. But that which he saw banished all thought of his own heartache. She sat leaning a little forward, her hands clasped tightly over Meredith's letter, her face white and strained, her eyes luminous as he had never yet seen them.