nd I won't try; but I fancy God
sends every one of us, if we know it, some one blessed chance, and He
did more for me--He lifted the veil of my stupidity and let me see it,
passing by in its halo, trailing clouds of glory. I don't want to
make you understand, though--I want to make you promise. I want to be
absolutely sure from to-night that you'll marry me. Say that you'll
marry me--say it before we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura." She
listened to his first words with a little half-controlled smile, then
made as if she would withdraw her hand, but he held it with his own, and
she heard him through, walking beside him formally on her bare feet, and
looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do in Putney.

"I don't object to your calling me by my given name," she said when he
had done, "but it can't go any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, and you
ought not to bring God into it--indeed you ought not. You are no son or
servant of His--you are among those whose very light is darkness, and
how great is your darkness!"

"Don't," he said shortly. "Never mind about that--now. You needn't be
afraid of me, Laura--there are decent chaps, you know, outside your
particular Kingdom of Heaven, and one of them wants you to marry him,
that's how it is. Will you?"

"I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm very much obliged, but
I couldn't dream of it."

"Don't dream of it; consider it, accept it. Why, dear creature, you are
mine already--don't you feel that?"

Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had the possession of his
eyes in her. Her tired body even clung to him. "Are you quite sure you
haven't begun to think of loving me?" he demanded.

"It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a question of the Army.
You don't seem to think the Army counts for anything."

One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, the least in the
world; but Lindsay detected an evasion in what she said, and the flame
in him leaped up.

"Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other question."

"Is that a quotation?" she asked. She spoke coldly, and this time she
succeeded in withdrawing her hand. "I daresay you think the Army very
common, Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and holy
crusade, and I march with it. You would not ask me to give up my
life-work?"

"Only to take it into another sphere," Duff said unreflectingly. He was
checked, but not discouraged; impatient, but in no wise cast down. S