watching as
closely as the now dim light allowed, the dark eyelashes lying on her
cheek, her closed mouth, and soft breathing. His very own!--the thought
was ecstasy--he forgot the war, and the few days left him.

But this very intensity of brooding love in which he held her, made her
restless after a little. She sat up, and smiled at him--

'We must go home!--Yes, we must. But look!--there is a boat!'

And only a few yards from them, emerging from the shadows, they saw a
boat rocking gently at anchor beside a tiny landing-stage. Nelly sprang
to her feet.

'George!--suppose you were just to row us out--there--into the light!'

But when they came to the boat they found it pad-locked to a post in the
little pier.

'Ah, well, never mind,' said Nelly--'I'm sure that man won't forget?'

'That man who spoke to us? Who was he?'

'Oh, I found out from Bridget, and Mrs. Weston. He's Sir William
Farrell, a great swell, tremendously rich. He has a big place somewhere,
out beyond Keswick, beyond Bassenthwaite. You saw he had a stiff knee?'

'Yes. Can't fight, I suppose--poor beggar! He was very much struck by
_you_, Mrs. George Sarratt!--that was plain.'

Nelly laughed--a happy childish laugh.

'Well, if he does get us leave to boat, you needn't mind, need you? What
else, I wonder, could he do for us?'

'Nothing!' The tone was decided. 'I don't like being beholden to great
folk. But that, I suppose, is the kind of man whom Bridget would have
liked you to marry, darling?'

'As if he would ever have looked at me!' said Nelly tranquilly. 'A man
like that may be as rich as rich, but he would never marry a poor wife.'

'Thank God, I don't believe money will matter nearly as much to people,
after the war!' said Sarratt, with energy. 'It's astonishing how now, in
the army--of course it wasn't the same before the war--you forget it
entirely. Who cares whether a man's rich, or who's son he is? In my
batch when I went up to Aldershot there were men of all sorts,
stock-brokers, landowners, city men, manufacturers, solicitors, some of
them awfully rich, and then clerks, and schoolmasters, and lots of poor
devils, like myself. We didn't care a rap, except whether a man took to
his drill, or didn't; whether he was going to keep the Company back or
help it on. And it's just the same in the field. Nothing counts but what
you _are_--it doesn't matter a brass hap'orth what you have. And as the
new armies come along that'll be so more