a silence of several minutes, and neither looked at the other.
At last Edmund rose and went to the side of the boat and looked over at
the water, and then, turning half-way towards her, said: "Why does it
startle you so much?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"But you do know perfectly well."

"Indeed, Edmund." Her face was flushed and her voice a little tremulous.

"You shall tell me." He spoke more imperiously than he knew.

"I can't, indeed I can't."

"No," he said; "it would be a difficult thing to say, I admit."

"Couldn't we read something?" said Rose.

"No, no use at all. I am going to tell you why you are so glad I am
short-sighted."

"But I am not glad."

"I repeat that you are, and this is the reason why."

"You shall not say it," said Rose, now more and more distressed and
embarrassed.

"It's because you never knew before why I did not volunteer for the war,
that is why you are so glad." "Yes," he thought in anger, "she has had
this thing against me all the time; it is one of the defences she has
set up." But he was hurt all the same--hurt and angry; he wanted to
punish her. "So all the time you have thought this of me?"

"No, indeed, indeed, Edmund, it wasn't that. I never meant that; I knew
you were never that, do believe me."

"Well, if I do believe you so far, what did you think?"

Rose let her book lie on her knee and leant over it with her hands
clasped. "I thought that perhaps," she faltered, "you had been too long
in the habit of doing nothing much, and that you had grown a little
lazy--at least, I didn't really think so, but that idea has struck me."

She came and stood by him. "Oh, Edmund, why do you make me say things
when I don't want to, when I hate saying them, when they are not really
true at all." She was deeply moved, and he felt that in one sense she
was in his power. He gave a bitter sigh.

"Can I make you say whatever I like?" Her face flushed and a different
look, one of fear he thought, came into her troubled eyes. "Then say
after me, 'I am very sorry I did not understand by intuition that you
were too blind to shoot the Boers, and that I was so silly as to think
for a moment that you had ever wasted your time or been the least little
bit lazy.'"

"No, I won't say anything at all"--she held out both hands to
him--"except what the children say, 'let us just go on with the game and
pretend that that part never happened.'"

And though Rose was still embarrassed, still inclined