“Dick, my darling. You are eating your heart out because you want to go off again to this wretched war, and perhaps get killed. You are not content to stay and take care of poor little me.”
She had grown wondrously tender towards him since the night of peril they had shared, in pursuance whereof she had laid an embargo upon any more needless adventures on his part.
“It isn’t that, sweetheart,” he answered. “I’m only too happy here—with you. But I seem to be hanging back—sort of skulking—while every other fellow who can shoot straight, or not, is in the field.”
She laughed softly.
“Skulking! You? Why, you’ve done the share of any ten men since the beginning of the war. No—no—Dick. If that’s all that’s troubling you, why it needn’t. And now, look here, you are to go on escort duty. You are to escort me—home.”
Dick’s face brightened.
“But, dearest, you are forgetting,” he said, with a puzzled look. “The road isn’t safe yet—not by a long chalk—for you to travel under such a small escort as myself and Greenoak.”
“It’ll be a bigger one. The Commandant is sending a lot of Police to King Williamstown in a day or two, and he says I may travel under their escort. Will you make one of it?”
“Won’t I!” he answered delightedly.