Gravely he flung the bombshell of his news, confident that it must lend him a new importance in her eyes, and thus, perhaps, bring her into something approaching subjection. “I am going to London, to the army. My father has procured me a cornetcy of horse, and I am to serve under General Monk, who is his friend.” It made an impression, though she did not give him the satisfaction of seeing how great that impression was. To do her justice, the army meant no more to her just at that moment than champing horses, blaring trumpets, and waving banners. Of its grimmer side she took as yet no thought: else she might have given his news a graver greeting. As it was, the surprise of it left her silent, staring at him in a new wonder. He took advantage of it to approach her again. He committed the mistake of attempting to force the pace. He caught her to him, taking her unawares this time and seizing her suddenly, before she could elude him. “Nan, my dear!” She struggled in his arms. But he held her firmly. She struggled the harder, and, finding her struggles ineffective, her temper rose. Her hands against his breast she thrust him back. “Release me at once! Release me, or I’ll scream!” At that and the anger in her voice, he let her go, and stood sheepishly, abashed, whilst she retreated a few paces from him, breathing quickly, her eyes aflash. “My faith! You’ll be a great success in London! They’ll like your oafish ways up yonder. I think you had better go.” “Forgive me, Nan!” He was in a passion of penitence, fearing that this time he had gone too far and angered her in earnest. “Ah, don’t be cruel. It is our last day together for Heaven knows how long.” “Well, that’s a mercy.” “Ye don’t mean that, Nan? Ye can’t mean that ye care nothing about me. That you are glad I’m going.” “You should mend your manners,” she reproved him by way of compromise. “Why, so I will. It’s only that I want you so; that I’m going away--far away; that after to-day I won’t see you again maybe for years. If ye say that ye don’t care for me at all, why, then I don’t think that I’ll come back to Potheridge ever. But if ye care--be it never so little, Nan--if you’ll wait for me, it’ll send me away with a good heart, it’ll give me strength to become great. I’ll conquer the world for you, my dear,” he ended grandiloquently, as is the way of youth in its unbounded confidence. “I’ll bring it back to toss it in your lap.” Her eyes were shining. His devotion and enthusiasm touched her. But her mischievous perversity must be dissembling it. She laughed on a rising inflection that was faintly mocking. “I shouldn’t know what to do with it,” said she. That and her laughter angered him. He had opened his heart. He had been boastful in his enthusiasm, he had magnified himself and felt himself shrinking again under the acid of her derision. He put on a sudden frosty dignity. “You may laugh, but there’ll come a day maybe when you won’t laugh. You may be sorry when I come back.”