I have friends--highly placed friends
--in my own country, who in their hearts feel as I do about the
war. It is through them that I am able to turn my back upon
Europe. I have done my share of fighting," he went on sadly, "and
the horror of it will never quite leave me. I think that no one
has ever charged me with shirking my duty, and yet the sheer, black
ugliness of this ghastly struggle, its criminal inutility, have got
into my blood so that I think I would rather pass out of the world
in some simple way than find myself back again in that debauch of
blood. Is this cowardice, Philippa?"
She looked at him with shining eyes.
"There isn't any one in the world," she said, "who could call you
a coward. Whatever I may decide, whatever I may feel towards you,
that at least I know."
He kissed her fingers.
"At ten o'clock," he began--
"But listen," she interrupted. "Apart from anything which Dick
might do, you are in terrible danger here, all the more if you
really have accomplished something. Why not go now, at this
moment? Why wait? These few hours may make all the difference."
He smiled.
"They may, indeed, make all the difference to my life," he answered.
"That is for you."
He followed Mills, who had obeyed her summons, out of the room.
Philippa moved to the window and watched him until he had
disappeared.
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