She came near to understanding of him now. While there was peace, and no likelihood at all of war, he had been content, in his odd, indifferent way, to stand apart from action. But now that war had come he reached back along the years ashamed and impotent, for the training other men had undergone--the training that made his fellows ready to follow the unexpected call, the sudden hazard. “It is cruel!” said Nance, with a quick, peremptory lifting of the head. “You could fight, if only they would let you----” “Just so. The bird could fly, if its wings had not been broken in the nest.” She knew this dangerous, still mood of his. He was a civilian, untrained, unready, left at home while stronger men were taking the hardships. In every line of his face, in the resolute, dark eyes, there was desperate shame and self-contempt; and yet he fancied he was hiding all show of feeling from her. Nance felt the pity of it--felt more than pity--found the tears so ready that she turned again to the spinet and began playing random odds and ends of ballads. And through all the stress she took a grip of some purpose that had been with her constantly these last days. Will Underwood--his dominant, big person, his gift of wooing--had gone from her life. She was lonely and afraid, and found no help except along the road of sacrifice--the road trodden hard and firm by generations of women seeking help in need. “Let me mend your life for you,” she said, glancing up with bewildering appeal and tenderness. Rupert was young to beguilement of this sort. Her eyes were kindly with him. There was a warmth and fragrance round about the parlour that hindered perception of the finer issues. And he knew in this moment that even a good love and steady can tempt a man unworthily. From the moors that guarded Windyhough there came a sudden fury of the wind, a rattle of frozen sleet against the windows. And Rupert lifted his head, answering the bidding of the open heath. “You cannot mend my life,” he said sharply. “How could you, Nance?” “You thought so once.” Her glance was friendly, full of affection and great liking; and so well had she been schooling herself to the new, passionate desire for sacrifice that Rupert read more in it than the old comradeship. “What have I done, that I cannot help you now?” He was dizzied by the unexpectedness, the swiftness of this night surprise. Here was Nance, her face turned eagerly toward him, and she was reminding him of the devotion he had shown her in years past. He had no key to the riddle, could not guess how desperate she was in her wish to hide Will Underwood’s indignities under cover of this sacrifice for Rupert’s sake--Rupert, whom she liked so well and pitied.