"And it's all owing to you," he exclaimed in a low voice, "that I didn't go and make an ass of myself on Wednesday. If it hadn't been for you, Rose, I should have enlisted. This would have come too late. It _is_ luck to have seen you now, like this. You're the very first I've told." He was wringing her hand, his face now as flushed as it had been pale. And as they stood there together, Rose suddenly became aware that Anna, at the kitchen window, was looking out at them both with a rather peculiar expression on her emotional German face. A feeling of annoyance swept over the girl; she knew that to her old nurse every young man who ever came to the Trellis House was a potential lover. But even Anna might have left Jervis Blake out of the category. There was nothing silly or--or sentimental, in the real, deep friendship they two felt for one another. And then Rose did something which surprised herself. Withdrawing her hand from his, she exclaimed, "I'll walk with you to the corner"--and led the way out, through the gate, and so along the empty roadway. They walked along in silence for a few moments. The Close was still deserted. Across the green, to their right, rose the noble grey mass of the Cathedral. In many of the houses the blinds were even now only beginning to be pulled up. "I rather expected yesterday that you would come in and tell me that you were going off to be one of the hundred thousand men Lord Kitchener has asked for," she said at last. "Of course I meant to be, but Mr. Robey thought I ought to communicate with my father before actually joining," he answered. "In fact, I had already written home. That's one reason why I'm going to get this wire off so early." "I suppose you'll be at Sandhurst this time next week?" And he frowned, for the first time that morning. "Oh no, I hope not! Mr. Robey heard last night from one of our fellows--one of those who passed last time--and he said he was being drafted at once into a regiment! You mustn't forget how long I was in the O.T.C. It seems they're sending all those who were in the O.T.C. straight into regiments." "Then by next week you'll be second lieutenant in the Wessex Light Infantry!" she exclaimed. She knew that it was in that famous regiment that General Blake had won his early spurs, and that it had been settled, in the days when no one had doubted Jervis Blake's ability to pass the Army Exam., that he would join his father's old regiment, now commanded by one of that father's very few intimates. "Yes, I suppose I shall," he said, flushing. "Oh, Rose, I can't believe in my luck. It's so much--much too good to be true!" They had come to the corner, to the parting of their ways. To the left, through the grey stone gateway, was the street leading into the town; on the right, within a few moments' walk, the Cathedral.