"Don't ask me to marry you! I'd never, never do it! Unless you were poor and sick and a nobody—and wanted a woman to nurse and work for you.... Then—the wag of a finger or the wind of a word would bring me to you. But—I swear it before God!—I won't marry you as you are!"
"You will!"
"I've sworn I won't. But—" She had whispered it in a kiss of fire—"I will give you—what that other man took!"
And Sherbrand had uttered a hoarse sound like a sob, and unwound her arms from about his neck, and said, holding her hands close in his and looking sternly in her swimming eyes:
"I'm no saint, God knows!—but I'm a better man than to take what you offer. Halloa! That's Davis. What's up now?"
A distant whistle had made him prick his ears. He whistled back and ran lightly up to the brink of the grassy punch-bowl in time to meet the little black-avised Welshman—hero of the Paris episode in connection with the girl with the goo-goo eyes. Davis had handed him a paper-pad. Sherbrand had read it, scrawled a reply on the blank side to be dispatched by the Station's Wireless, and hurried back to Patrine.
"We—couldn't have been married to-morrow anyway. The man who undertook to replace me while I went on leave has been killed doing reconnaissance on our new Front in North-West France. I'm recalled."
"Recalled?"
He nodded. The British Force had been deftly transferred from its position on the Aisne to a base at St. Omer, you will remember, thus blocking the Calais Gate. The New Offensive was taking shape. Sherbrand had continued:
"So—if you're to catch the three-fifty from Fearnchurch to Charing Cross—we'll have to run!"