"Do you care so much?" and there was a touch of wistfulness in her voice.
"So much! Why, you know. You have been the only thing I've cared for--for months. Why, you---you are everything to me. I'm not a clever fellow, I know that--but--but--I can fight, Nancy. And it's all for you."
Nancy stood still a few seconds, evidently fighting with herself. She knew she could not in honour promise even what Trevanion had asked for without telling him the truth. And this was terribly difficult. She felt that he had a right to know, and yet it was like sacrilege to tell him.
"You see," went on the Captain, "your father----!"
"Stop!" cried the girl; "before you say any more, I must tell you something. It's very hard, but I must. I said there was no one else, but that's not--true."
"There was some one else, although it's--all over."
"But, but who? No, forgive me for asking. I've no right to ask. Besides, you say--that--that it's a thing of the past."
"If what? Tell me who--if you think it fair of me to ask."
"There can be no one, except--I say, Nancy, you can't mean Nancarrow?"
"Don't, please. I loved him--at least I thought I did, and--and we were engaged. If--if--that is, but for the war, he would have spoken to father by this time, and--and everything would have been made known. When--he played the coward, I found out my mistake, and I told him so."
"Great heavens, yes! It was, of course, only a foolish fancy. A girl like you could never seriously care for that class of man."
"I am ashamed of myself when I think of him," and Nancy's voice was hoarse as she spoke. "In a way I feel contaminated. If there is anything under heaven that I despise, it's a coward. I want to forget that I--I ever thought of him. I want to drive him from my mind."
"And that is what keeps you from promising me anything. But surely you do not care for him now. Why--why, you couldn't! The fellow who could show the white feather at such a time as this, and then try and cover up his cowardice by all that religious humbug, is not of your class, Nancy. He's a rank outsider. I'm sorry I was ever friends with him. Your father told me he was mad with himself for ever allowing him inside the house."
"We'll drive him from our minds, Nancy. There, he's done with. He's not worthy of a thought. You owe it to yourself, to your name, your country, to banish it from your mind."