"I couldn't bear to lose you," she sobbed... "I couldn't bear it. I've thought I couldn't marry you even if you wished it, but--I can't--give you up." Without answering her, he kissed her, if not with passion, with a great tenderness and an almost reverential gratitude; and in his heart he resolved that he would make good to her in every way in which it was humanly possible for the one thing which he could not give her--that which was given already, and which no one can give twice--the pure flame of a first passion. The love which he had for her was the steady glow which succeeds the fierce upward flash of the white flame that leaps from the heart and leaves behind only memories. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. It seemed to Matheson that with his engagement events multiplied with such amazing rapidity that the deep significance of the step he had taken was lost sight of; its importance was swamped in the whirlpool of calamitous happenings that marked the year of 1914 in bloody letters upon the calendar of the world. It was in July that he became engaged, and within a week of his proposal the world war had made its puling start with the faked dispute over an assassinated archduke. The insignificant start swelled to compelling significance; and the world awaited with suspended breath each new development of the most appalling disaster in the history of the nations. From the first Matheson had no doubt that Great Britain would be forced into the struggle. There was no choice about it; it was a question of national safety as well as of honour. He began to consider the subject in connexion with himself. Plainly if the country went to war it was his duty to see the matter through. Quite apart from inclination the man of military age and fitness was called upon to serve. He talked to Macfarlane about it. Macfarlane was cautious and reserved his opinion. "You've got a girl now," he said. "You've got to consider her." "But that's all the greater reason why a man should stand by his country," Matheson insisted. "Better talk it over with her first. And, look here!" Macfarlane became more alert. "This trouble, if it involves England, is going to reach out here. Have you forgotten your talk about a Boer rebellion? I thought you were rotting at the time--but you weren't. You are something of a prophet, you know, Matheson. If England is full up with her own affairs, that's just the time the Boers will seize for getting hold of this country. It's all cut and dried, you can depend on that. Should there be trouble out here," Macfarlane added in a hard decisive voice, "I am for helping to quell that anyway. If your talk of colonisation is worth anything, you will do the same."