The tears sprang to her eyes. She knelt down to look at them.
'Do you remember anything about this?' he said, holding out a little book. It was the pocket Anthology she had found for Desmond on the day of his going into camp. As she looked through it she saw a turned-down leaf, and seemed still to hear the boy's voice, as he hung over her shoulder translating the epigram—
'Shame on you, mountains and seas!'
With a swelling throat she told the story. The Squire listened, and when afterwards she offered the book to him again, he put it back into her hand, with some muttered words which she interpreted as bidding her keep it.
She put it away in the drawer of her writing-table, which had been brought back to its old place only that morning. The Squire himself went to his own desk.
'Will you sit there?' He pointed to her chair. 'I want to speak to you.'
Then after a pause he added slowly, 'Will you tell me—what you think I can now do with my time?'
His voice had a curious monotony—unlike its usual tone. But Elizabeth divined a coming crisis. She went very white.
'Dear Mr. Mannering—I don't know what to say—except that the country seems to want everything that each one of us can do.'
'Have you read Haig's Order of the Day?'