"At any rate," she said, "it is frightfully rough on mother. Her life was hard enough before—what with ill-health and that sort of thing. Now it will be ten times worse." She clenched her hands in a sudden passionate protest. "I can’t help it," she went on, "it seems to me all wrong. She is the best, the cleverest woman I have ever met. She ought to be the wife of a genius or a great, good man—not father’s wife. Father ought to have married Mrs. Clerk. Why did she marry him? It is wicked, but it is the thought which comes into my mind every time I see them together. And now, when I think that she will have to scrape and save as well I——" She stopped short and looked at her companion defiantly. "I suppose you are very shocked," she said. "That comes of always feeling as though you were one of the family. I have to say just what is passing in my mind." "I am glad you have so much confidence in me," Arnold answered seriously. "All the same, I do not think that you are just to your father. He is a thoroughly good man. Many people would think Mrs. Ingestre very lucky." "Perhaps they _do_ think so," Nora said, with indifference. "That is because no one about here is capable of understanding her. In any case, it’s no good talking about it. This latest trouble is quite enough." "I suppose Miles will be able to stay in the Army?" Arnold asked. "Oh, yes, that’s settled." "What about your studies? They will have to be given up, of course?" "Why ’of course’?" she flashed out. "Because there won’t be enough money for them," he explained in a matter-of-fact tone. "For my part," he went on, "I shall be glad. I dreaded the thought of coming home on leave and finding you gone. It would have been sickening." "It will be still more ’sickening’ now," she said, rather revengefully. "I am going away for a long time, and to a place a long way off." "Nora! In Heaven’s name where and why?" She laughed at his astonished, troubled face. "To Karlsburg, in Germany—as a companion." "To Germany! Why do you want to go there?" "Because I do not want to vegetate here." "Nora, you will hate it. You will be ill with home-sickness. You don’t know what it will be like. It is not as though you will be among your own country-people. You will hate their manners, their customs, their ways, and they will treat you like a servant. Little Nora, I can’t bear the thought of it." He spoke earnestly, almost incoherently. Nora shook her head. "There is no other alternative," she said. "There is one other alternative, Nora. Will you be my wife?" He had taken her hand, and she did not attempt to draw it back. Nor had she changed colour. Her clear eyes studied his thin, rather gaunt face, and passed on with frank criticism to his tall figure, loosely built and rather stooping, in the grey Norfolk suit. "Nora," he said sternly, "I have asked you a question. You do not need to look at me like that. I am not different to what I usually am."