There was silence for a time. Then Wilbraham said, suddenly: "Do you remember that evening at dinner when Harry asked about hurrying up his training, and you told him that enlistment wouldn’t be the course for him to follow, whatever it might be for others?" "Oh, yes, perfectly. Why do you ask?" "Because afterwards, when we were alone together, he came back to it." "Ah!" she said. "Why didn’t you tell me?" He gave a short laugh. "I thought you’d ask that," he said. "I wish I had, sometimes, though I doubt if it would have made any difference." "What did he say?" "He began by saying that he was going to ask me to do something for him. I could do it or not, as I thought right, but I wasn’t to tell you about it in either case." She was silent, and her needles clicked steadily. But there had been the slightest pause in the regular sound of them. "It was only to save you and his mother anxiety," Wilbraham hurried to say. "I had to give the promise, or he wouldn’t have told me what was in his mind. It was to find out for him whether it was possible to get his commission sooner by enlisting. Well, I said at once that I couldn’t do that behind your back, and I told him that it was impossible in any case for him to enlist before he was eighteen. He seemed to be satisfied. In fact, he said that he had only wanted to be quite sure that he was leaving nothing undone that he could do. I thought it was off his mind. He never said anything more to me about it." "Well, I think you acted rightly," she said, after a pause. "I had thought it all out. It had seemed to me possible that he might come to think it was his duty to enlist, as the war went on. I had asked myself whether it would be right to keep him back, if that happened, and had come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be gained by his enlisting—from his point of view, I mean. It seemed to me as I said then, on the first opportunity for saying anything, that—well, you heard what I said. I thought he had accepted it." "So did I. I’m glad I’ve told you, but I’m not sure that you could have done anything. I believe he was satisfied to leave it alone then. It came to him afterwards—not that he could hurry up his training as an officer, but that it was his duty to go off and get into the lines as quickly as possible. He knew you wouldn’t sanction that, and I’d already told him that you’d have the power to stop his enlisting. So he thought it all out for himself, and kept his own counsel." "That is what happened," she said, calmly. "I have thought that out, too. I think he was right, you know—dear Harry." He looked up in surprise at this. "I couldn’t have sanctioned it," she said. "And yet I should have sympathized with him—much more than he had any idea of. I’m proud of him. But, oh, how I wish he could have trusted me a little more."