"Yes," he replied, "Proctor told me. He was at Clifton with me, you know, and Trevanion told him."
"Did Mr. Proctor say that?"
"I think so—yes; and then, as soon as mother heard I was here, she wrote to me and told me about it. I suppose your father is very pleased?"
"How he must hate me!" she thought. "It is only a few weeks ago since I promised to be his wife, and then only a week or two later I insulted him, and now he thinks I am engaged to Captain Trevanion. How mean, how contemptible he must think me! He must look upon me as a common flirt; he must believe that my promises to him were just a mockery; it is no wonder he speaks to me like that, and I—oh, I wish I could tell him!"
A French soldier hobbled across the open space. "If you please, mademoiselle, you're wanted," he said; "another train load of wounded men has just arrived, and all the nurses are needed." He saluted Bob, who wore his lieutenant's uniform, and then he hobbled away again.
"This war is a terrible business, isn't it?" he queried, and there was a plaintive smile on his lips.
"It has upset everything, just everything; I hate it!" she cried—"I hate it! Oh, Bob, don't you feel how I hate it?"
She wanted him to understand more than her words conveyed; wanted him to feel that it was not the horrors of the war that moved her so greatly, but the fact that it had separated them.
"Yes, I know what you feel," said Bob; "but you must go through with it, Nancy. I'm sure you will be brave. When it is over, your reward will come. There—go back, and don't mind me."
"I won't go back!" she cried. "Bob, you can't forgive me, because I was so mean, so contemptible; I called you a coward; I insulted you; I—I . . . and now you can't forgive me—and I don't wonder."