"Join at Aldershot to-morrow. Special train at two," he told Ruth in the confidential whisper beloved of working-men. "Don't say nothing to nobody." As though the news, if it reached the Kaiser, would profoundly affect the movements of the German armies.
That evening Ernie went up to the Manor-house to say good-bye.
Mrs. Trupp was far more to him than his god-mother: she was a friend known to him from babyhood, allied to him by a thousand intimate ties, and trusted as he trusted no one else on earth, not even his dad.
Now he unbosomed to her the one matter that was worrying him on his departure—that he should be leaving Ruth encumbered with debt.
Mrs. Trupp met him with steady eyes. It was her first duty, the first duty of every man, woman and child in the nation to see that the fighting-men went off in good heart.
"You needn't worry about Ruth," she said, quietly. "She'll have the country behind her. All the soldiers' wives will."
Ernie shook his head doubtfully.
"Ah, I don't hold much by the country," he said.
The lady's grave face, silver-crowned, twinkled into sudden mischievous life. She rippled off into the delicious laughter he loved so dearly.
"I know who's been talking to you!" she cried.