"I don't understand," he stammered.
"You said it might be he, as though there were a doubt about it; don't you know for certain? You've seen Captain Pringle; did you see him after you recovered consciousness, that is, after you were rescued?"
"Yes, but of course I scarcely knew what was said to me."
"And did Captain Pringle tell you it was—was—the Nancarrow we knew?"
"He said it was Nancarrow from Clifton, and—and that he had done the bravest thing since the war began; but everything was vague to me. I—I, of course, didn't believe it was Nancarrow; you know what he said? But, I say, Nancy, all this makes no difference to us, does it? You didn't raise my hopes only to dash them to the ground! I shall be off to the front again in a few days, and—oh, if you could give me just a word—just a word, Nancy, everything would be different! Hang it all, even if it is he, and, of course, if it is, I shall not be slow in acknowledging it, I haven't a bad record myself, and I shall go back as major, you know."
But the girl did not answer. Slowly she walked across the yard outside the improvised hospital, without even bidding him "good-day."
"I'm glad I told her, anyhow," reflected Trevanion; "it was beastly hard—one of the hardest things I ever did. Good God, it seems the very irony of fate that he should be the man to save me! I wonder if he knew that it was I? Perhaps though he knows nothing of what passed between us. I wonder where he is now. Anyhow, he shall never have her; there's no other woman in the world for me, and—oh, yes, I'm all right."
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Bob still lay in bed, weak as a child, but still on the highway to recovery. He had no fever, and his wounds were beginning to heal.
Hundreds of men lay around him in the huge building which had been commandeered as a hospital; French and English soldiers were carefully nursed without a thought as to their nationality. It seemed as though all the old enmity between France and England had gone for ever, and that this terrible war made the two nations as one.