"Don't look at me as if you meant to despise me, Katherine. I sometimes see that look in your eyes, and it makes me so sick."
"I don't understand you, Kitty. I admired you in London, for I thought that, whatever happened, yours was a true and a great love, and I always respect sincerity in anybody or in anything. But since you came here—"
"It is all my nerves," said the poor girl. "It is the bursting of the horrible shells, and the terror that one will come through the roof."
"Well, and if it does come through the roof?"
"Katherine! Why, we should all be killed."
"What of that? we can but die once. Oh, you must lose your fear of death if you are to be any good at all in Ladysmith. And look here, Kitty, I mean you to be good—I mean you to be of use. What is a woman, strong and in her youth, doing in a place of this sort if she is not of use? We are going to have a very terrible time; I don't pretend to deny it. We are hemmed in closer every day. The enemy are coming up in greater and greater numbers. The Boers are no fools, let me tell you. They know how to fight, and they know how to endure. They have the courage, some of them, of ten men, and they are fighting for their country. And they mean—yes, Kitty, they mean to take Ladysmith if they can. Of course they won't take it, for we will never, never give in. But if there were many of us like you in this place, why, we'd be indeed a poor lot!"
Kitty turned white. Her handkerchief was lying near; she took it up and wiped the moisture off her brow.
"I wish I was not so—shaky," she said, in a tremulous voice.
"You poor little thing! I am sorry I spoke harshly, but I have been seeing so very much of real life all day. Those poor fellows—not a murmur out of them! And oh, the agony some of them have endured! And then I come here, and I see you with a whole skin, in a comfortable room with food and water within reach, crying because you have a fit of the nerves. But I know people who get these nervous attacks are to be pitied. And I do pity you, poor little Kitty; only I want to stimulate you to courage."
"I will be good," said Kitty faintly. "Help me to dress."