.

"I shall certainly not let you go into battle all alone! You are a mere
child when it comes to taking precaution in danger."

"You mean you would actually gallop into battle to see I came to no
mischief?" I demanded, laughing.

"Aye, clip my hair and dress the trooper, jack-boots and all, if you
drive me to it!" she exclaimed, irritated. "You may as well know it,
Carus; you shall not go floundering about alone, and that's flat! See
what a mess of it you were like to make in New York!"

"Then," said I, still laughing, yet touched to the heart, "I shall
instruct you in the duties and amenities of wedded life, and we may as
well marry and be done with it. Once married, I, of course, shall do as
I please in the matter of battles----"

"No, you shall not! You shall consider me! Do you think to go roaming
about, nose in the air, and leaving me to sit quaking at home, crying
my eyes out over your foolishness? Do I not already know the terror of
it with you in New York there, and only ten minutes to save your neck
from Cunningham? Thank you, I am already instructed in the amenities of
wedded life--if they be like the pleasures of betrothal--though I cared
not a whit what happened to Walter Butler, it is true, yet fell sick o'
worry when you and Rosamund Barry went a-sailing--not that I feared
you'd drown, either. O Carus, Carus, you distract me, you worry me; you
tell me nothing, nothing, and I never knew what you were about there in
New York when you were not with me!--doubtless a-courting every
petticoat on Hanover Square, for all I know!"

"Well," said I, amazed and perplexed, "if you think, under the
circumstances, there is any prospect of our falling in love after
marriage, and so continuing, I will wed you--now----"

"No!" she interrupted angrily; "I shall not marry you, nor even betroth
myself. It may be that I can see you leave me and bid you a fair
journey, unmoved. I would to God I could! I feel that way now, and may
continue, if I do not fall a-pondering, and live over certain hours
with you that plague me at times into a very passion. But at moments
like this I weary of you, so that all you say and do displeases, and
I'm sick of the world and I know not what! O Carus, I am sick of
life--and I dare not tell you why!"

She rested her head on her hands, staring down at her blurred image,
reflected in the polished table-top.

"I have sometimes thought," she mused, "that the fault lay with
you--somewhat."