Fancy gasped.
"Oh, dear! You'll never let him go—surely?"
Hamlin rose, a tall, gaunt figure.
"My patriotism," he said grimly, "is not quite so lively, Fancy, as it was last night."
He went out of the room. Fancy began to clear away the breakfast things, much troubled, sorely perplexed, alive to her finger-tips with the dismal consciousness that life had become suddenly confoundingly difficult. If Alfred took a notion to enlist, and if he consulted her about it, as surely he would, to what sort of strain would her patriotism be subjected? She, too, approached the question in fear and trembling. At the moment "things," as she vaguely expressed it, were going better and better for Alfred. War seemed to have oiled all commercial wheels. On Sundays her happy swain soared into an empyrean of prosperity and opulence where he sat enthroned high above her, talking exuberantly of a future she dared not envisage. The good fellow assured her that the Germans would soon be on the run, with English sabres hewing them down, with English bayonets in their fat backs. Would such a man, travelling at excess speed into Tom Tiddler's Ground, fingering daily larger and ever larger pieces of silver and gold, stop suddenly and abandon everything?
He might.
If patriotism seized him, as it had seized Mr. Edward, the strangling grip would choke ambition, self-interest, and woman's love.
She told herself miserably that Mr. Edward would go. More, his father would not raise a finger to stop him. As the Parson left the dining-room, she guessed that his decision had been made already.
Within a week it became common knowledge in the village that Mr. Edward Hamlin had enlisted in the Guards. He would appear amongst his father's parishioners in a private's kit, and salute respectfully his old friend, Captain Pomfret.
He was the first "gentleman" in those parts to relinquish fortune at the call of duty. And his shining example, so his father perceived, had moved mountains of too solid flesh. As yet the great recruiting campaign had not begun.