"Are you walking back, then?"
"Walking?" Then he laughed. "Oh, I see, you are thinking about the car. It is not my car now. My father has disinherited me, disowned me; this place is no longer my home; but I would do it again, Erskine, I would do it a thousand times. Good-night, Bella, old girl. What have you and Erskine been talking about?"
"But I shall see you again, Hugh?" said Isabella Lethbridge, without seeming to notice the question.
"You will have to come early to-morrow morning, if you do," he replied, with a laugh. "I am under orders now, and must report myself to-morrow afternoon. Don't worry, old girl."
"I will make father forgive you, I'll simply make him."
Hugh laughed sceptically.
"You might as well think of moving Routor, or Brown Willie, as think of moving my father; and you know it, Bella; but mother's a trump. Do you know, mother sees more of this business than I have ever seen. I told her just now that I was going to the front almost immediately, and I don't think she ever expects to see me alive again; but she behaved like a saint in heaven. She sees into the heart of this war—sees why England must fight, why it is our duty to crush German militarism; sees why we must save Belgium. You and I have often laughed, Bella, but her mind, or rather her heart, has probed the thing to its very depths. She has made me believe more in religion during the last few minutes I have been with her than I have believed in all my life. She quoted some words from the Bible, which opened a new world for me—'Without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.' She spoke like one inspired. I cannot explain the meaning of it, I only know that as she repeated the passage I felt its meaning;—and she made me feel I was doing a great thing. I was no longer going to the war simply at the call of my country, but at the call of God. Good-night, Bella, old girl; shall I see you to-morrow?"
"Where can I see you, Hugh?"
"At my wife's home," he said proudly. "Will you dare father's anger, and come?"
Her only reply was to throw her arms round her brother's neck and kiss him, and then, without even looking at me, she rushed rapidly towards the house.