swered, and to her surprise there came a queer lump
in her throat. "Why is everything different now?"

He looked round at her with an air of genuine
surprise, and, yes, of indignation, in his steady grey
eyes. And under that surprised and indignant look,
so unlike anything there had ever been before from
him to her, the colour flushed all over her face.

"You mean," she faltered, "you mean because --
because England is at war?"

He nodded.

"But I thought -- of course I don't know anything
about it, Jervis, and I daresay you'll think me very
ignorant -- but from what the Dean said this morning
I thought that only our fleet is to fight the Germans."

"The Dean is an old----" and then they both
laughed. Jervis Blake went on: "If we don't go
to the help of the French and the Belgians, then
England's disgraced. But of course we're going to
fight!"

Rose Otway was thinking -- thinking hard. She
knew a good deal about Jervis, and his relations with
the father he both loved and feared.

"Look here," she said earnestly. "We've always
been friends, you and I, haven't we, Jervis?"

And again he simply nodded in answer to the
question.

"Well, I want you to promise me something!"

"I can't promise you I won't enlist."

"I don't want you to promise me that. I only
want you to promise me to wait just a few days --
say a week. Of course I don't know anything about how
one becomes a soldier, but you'd be rather sold,
wouldn't you, if you enlisted and then if your regi-

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