His voice dropped a little; he looked out with veiled eyes upon the lake chequered with the blue and white of its inverted sky. Nelly guessed--trembling--at the procession of images that was passing through them; and felt for a moment strangely separated from him--separated and desolate. 'George, it's dreadful now--to be a woman!' She spoke in a low appealing voice, pressing up against him, as though she begged the soul in him that had been momentarily unconscious of her, to come back to her. He laughed, and the vision before his eyes broke up. 'Darling, it's adorable now--to be a woman! How I shall think of you, when I'm out there!--away from all the grime and the horror--sitting by this lake, and looking--as you do now.' He drew a little further away from her, and lying on his elbows on the grass, he began to read her, as it were, from top to toe, that he might fix every detail in his mind. 'I like that little hat so much, Nelly!--and that blue cloak is just ripping! And what's that you've got at your waist--a silver buckle?--yes! I gave it you. Mind you wear it, when I'm away, and tell me you're wearing it--then I can fancy it.' 'Will you ever have time--to think of me--George?' She bent towards him. He laughed. 'Well, not when I'm going over the parapet to attack the Boches. Honestly, one thinks of nothing then but how one can get one's men across. But you won't come off badly, my little Nell--for thoughts--night or day. And you mustn't think of us too sentimentally. It's quite true that men write wonderful letters--and wonderful verse too--men of all ranks--things you'd never dream they could write. I've got a little pocket-book full that I've collected. I've left it in London, but I'll show you some day. But bless you, nobody _talks_ about their feelings at the front. We're a pretty slangy lot in the trenches, and when we're in billets, we read novels and rag each other--and _sleep_--my word, we do sleep!' He rolled on his back, and drew his hat over his eyes a moment, for even in the fresh mountain air the June sun was fierce. Nelly sat still, watching him, as he had watched her--all the young strength and comeliness of the man to whom she had given herself. And as she did so there came swooping down upon her, like the blinding wings of a Fury, the remembrance of a battle picture she had seen that morning: a bursting shell--limp figures on the ground. Oh not George--not _George_--never! The agony ran through her, and her fingers gripped the turf beside her. Then it passed, and she was silently proud that she had been able to hide it. But it had left her pale and restless. She sprang up, and they went along the high path leading to Grasmere and Langdale.