"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'
"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her
sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.
"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I said.
'If they distrust Gresham they must settle with him themselves.'
"She looked at me doubtfully.
"'But war--' she said.
"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself and
me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and completely,
must drive us apart for ever.
"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief
or that.
"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There
will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past.
Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me,
dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my
life, and I have chosen this.'
"'But _war_--' she said.
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