"Perhaps? ... I hardly know," said Patrine, thrusting away the loathed memory of the Upas. "Perhaps the wind has shifted—or a goose walked over my grave."
She changed her tone and began to tell him how Margot had evicted her Uncle Derek and his Lepidopthingambobs and handed over the caravanserai in Hanover Square to the Red Cross people for a Hospital—and how all the wards were to be covered with vulcanised rubber—not a corner to catch a dust-speck anywhere. And she went on to describe her journey in search of Sherbrand, and her disappointment at finding him absent from the Hospital at Pophereele—and the kindness shown her by the Monseigneur who had escorted her from St. O—, and subsequently insisted on accompanying her here.
"For it's supposed to be risky," she ended, smiling. "He says—to me it seems like spitting in the face of a dead body!—that the Germans shell the poor place nearly every day."
"It's true. They've pitched High Explosive in once already this morning—and as I mean to marry you to-morrow," said Sherbrand, "we had better be off out of it before they repeat the dose." He added: "There's an English Catholic priest at the Hospital—and I've my Special Licence still tucked away in a pocket!"
She exclaimed in delight:
"Then you never meant to give me up? Own it—you didn't!"
"It was you who took your solid oath you wouldn't marry me."
"Unless you were poor and ill—and wanted a woman to nurse you and look after you"—her voice broke—"and work for you! Oh, Boy!—no, not boy any more! My man of all the men that ever were or will be! Don't refuse me the right my love gives me—of working for you!" she urged.
"Such true love. Such fine love. Pat, you're a glory of a woman. And you shall work—I'll give you lots of work," he promised her. "But—my sweet girl, I'm not poor."
She asked him in her deep sweet voice: