"Kirsty," he pleaded, "say you think I'm right."
But Kirsty's face was white and drawn.
"I thought you were happy," she said at last, with a pitiful little sob on the last word.
"So happy," said her husband, "that I have to go. Every time I came in and found you waiting for me with the kettle singing, when I went out in the morning and looked at the hills, when I walked in the garden and knew that every bush in it was dear to me—then I remembered that these things so dear were being bought with a price, and that the only decent thing for me to do was to go and help to pay that price."
"But only as a chaplain, surely?"
Andrew shook his head.
"I'm too young and able-bodied for a chaplain. I'm only thirty-two, and though I'm not big I'm wiry."
"The Archbishop of Canterbury says the clergy shouldn't fight," Kirsty reminded him.
Andrew took her arm and looked very tenderly at her as he answered, laughing, "Oh! Kirsty, since when did an Anglican bishop direct your conscience and mine?" They walked slowly towards the house.
On the doorstep Kirsty turned.