est to kill me, 'Gott strafe England,' they're saying in
Germany--I understand it. Many a time it's in me to say, 'Gott strafe
Germany.'"

He drew in his breath sharply, as if to pull himself together, and was
still a moment. The next he turned upon her his wonderful boy's smile.
Suddenly there was trusting appeal in it.

"You don't mind my holding your hand and talking like this, do you? Your
eyes are as soft as--I've seen fawns cropping among the primroses with
eyes that looked like them. But yours _understand_. You don't mind my
doing this?" he kissed her palm. "Because there is no time."

Her free hand caught at his sleeve.

"No," she said. "You're going--you're _going_!"

"Yes," he answered. "And you wouldn't hold me back."

"No! No! No! No!" she cried four times, "Belgium! Belgium! Oh! Belgium!"
And she hid her eyes on his sleeve.

"That's it--Belgium! There has been war before, but this promises from
the outset to be something else. And they're coming on in their
millions. We have no millions--we have not even guns and uniforms
enough, but we've got to stop them, if we do it with our bare hands and
with walls of our dead bodies. That was how Belgium held them back. Can
England wait?"

"You can't wait!" cried Robin. "No man can wait."

How he glowed as he looked at her!

"There. That shows how you understand. See! That's what draws me. That's
why, when I saw you through the window, I had to follow you. It wasn't
only your lovely eyes and your curtains of eyelashes and because you are
a sort of rose. It is you--you! Whatsoever you said, I should know the
meaning of, and what I say you will always understand. It's as if we
answered each other. That's why I never forgot you. It's why I waked up
so when I saw you at the Duchess'." He tried to laugh, but did not quite
succeed. "Do you know I have never had a moment's real rest since that
night--because I haven't seen you."

"I--" faltered Robin, "have wondered and wondered--where you were."

All the forces of nature drew him a little nearer to her--though the
gardener who clumped past them dully at the moment only saw a
particularly good-looking young soldier, apparently engaged in agreeable
conversation with a pretty girl who was not a nursemaid.

"Did you come here because of that?" he asked with frank anxiety. "Do
you come here often and was it just chance? Or did you come because you
were wondering?"

"I didn't exactly know--at first. But I know no