"Does that mean that I am to go away?" said John, "or merely that I am not to speak to you?"
She laughed a little. "Neither. It means that I am tired of being scolded."
"I have wondered now and then," said John, deliberately, "why you put up with it?"
"I suppose—because I can't help it," she said, startled.
"You are a free agent."
"You mean that I could go away?" she said, in a low voice. "But there is only one place I should care to go to now."
"To South Africa?"
"You always understand," she said gratefully.
"Supposing this—this ghastly war should not be over as soon as we all hope," he said, rather huskily, "I could escort you myself, in a few weeks' time, to the Cape. Or—or arrange for your going earlier if you desired, and if I could not get away. Probably you would get no further than Cape Town; but it might be easier for you waiting there—than here."
"I shall thank you, and bless you always, for thinking of it," she interrupted, softly; "but there is something—that I never told anybody."