'What's the use of that, lass?' said he, forgetting his respect for her. 'I have put all that away now. That's all away beyond me now.'
'No,' she said proudly. 'No. It is not. Oh, do you think that the people who know you do not know what your ability is? Do you think they have lost their faith in you? Do you think they are not still looking forward and hoping the time may come that they may be proud of your success, and—and—come and shake hands with you, Ronald—and say how glad they are? And have you no regard for them, or heed for their—their affection towards you?'
Her cheeks were burning red, but she was far too much in earnest to measure her phrases; and she held his hand in an imploring kind of way; and surely, if ever a brave and unselfish devotion and love looked out from a woman's eyes, that was the message that Meenie's eyes had for him then.
'I had a kind of fancy,' he said, 'that if I could get abroad—with one o' those Highland regiments—there might come a time when I could have the chance of winning the V.C.—the Victoria Cross, I mean; ay, and it would have been a proud day for me the day that I was able to send that home to you.'
'To me, Ronald?' she said, rather faintly.
'Yes, yes,'said he. 'Whatever happened to me after that day would not matter much.'
'But you have promised——'
'And I will keep that promise, and any others you may ask of me, Miss Douglas.'
'That you will call me Meenie, for one?' she said, quite simply and frankly.
'No, no; I could not do that,' he answered—and yet the permission sounded pleasant to the ear.