'Make haste, please!' she said, breathing quickly. 'There isn't very much time.'
His face changed. He sat up, and held out his hand to her.
'Dear Cicely, I want you to do something for me.'
But she put her own behind her back.
'Have you been quarrelling already? Because if you want me to make it up, that really isn't my vocation.'
He was silent a moment surveying her. Then he said quietly—'I want you to help me. I want you to be kind to that little girl.'
'Daisy Stewart? Thank you. But I've no gift at all for mothering babes! Besides—she'll now have all the advice, and all the kindness she wants.'
Marsworth's lips twitched.
'Yes, that's true—if you and I can help her out. Cicely!—aren't you a great friend of Sir John Raine?'
He named one of the chiefs of the Army Medical Department, a man whose good word was the making of any aspirant in the field he ruled.