first met chapter ii that accident of s turned out an one for her it was a very difficult case long tedious and full of anxiety then when mr was beginning to get about again he told her what every woman likes to hear that he could not live without her that although as he put it he was no catch he would never know another moment s peace unless she would promise to be his wife and of course she so promised at first he had apparently been contented enough to look forward to that some day which all lovers firmly believe in then as he grew stronger and began to see the effect that his nurse had upon the friends who came to the farm house where he had been carried after the accident to see him he also began to realize that when she was no longer nursing him she ao might at any moment be sent out to attend a similar case or at least a similar patient and he began to be impatient of her profession to fret and and rail against fate against everything but her and at last when he could stand it no longer he insisted on her breaking the chains which bound her look here my darling he said to her one day i know it s very grand and noble this nursing and all that and of course i admire you awfully for it both for your pluck and your skill and for your endurance and i shall always love you better that i happened to meet you in that way but � but at the same time the day has gone by for all that sort of thing why my dearest you might be sent out to some other fellow who had been smashed up of course i might she replied well i don t like it i don t like it at all by jove the chap might even fall in love with you it s not impossible she said smiling why you might be sent to some fellow of my own regiment by jove the doctor might the price of a wife even insist on having you and the fellow would be safe to fall in love with you nonsense none of my have fallen in love with me before it would be not at all no more than it was to have to come to you yes but you were not engaged when you came to me it does make a difference i must live said she quietly yes i know and that s the hard part of it look here my dear dear little quaint girl with your old world name and your garb i am going to make a proposal to you you may not like it it may even make you rather angry with me but i want you at least to think it well over don t say no in a hurry i ll make a clean breast of the whole past you know i ve been a bit of an ass in my time � most fellows in the service are sooner or later � i got dipped and when i expected my father to pay up my debts because after all i have never had much of an allowance though i m the eldest son and all that he was furious i believe that men who have made their money in business and by their own are mostly very of every life that happens to be a bit different from their own at all events i know that he is he began life with nothing � ha penny and a pair of i believe � and though he is as rich as he is as near and as saving as � as � the grave so when he found that i was dipped he told me that he would pay my debts but that he should expect me to my folly by marrying a woman with money now i don t happen to like women with money i can t help it i believe it is constitutional with me but it is none the less a remarkable fact that i have never yet seen the woman with money that i should like to sell myself to now all this happened my dearest before i had ever seen you or heard of you before i had ever been really in love in my life so i promised that i would look for money though without having the very smallest intention of doing it of course it is always easy to off an evil day and if my old father likes to spend his time hunting up for me why it i an amusement for him and it is quite easy for me to find some the price of a wife tion to them therefore up to now i have never troubled myself about his little weakness for the acquisition of money but have gone on exactly as i have done before one result of this was that i soon found myself more heavily in debt than ever i am not a bit ashamed of my debts � not a bit i have never had a proper allowance such as a man in an expensive cavalry regiment ought to have and requires to have especially when he is known to be the son of an rich father i have done nothing outrageous ive not painted the town red nor wasted money over women nor even thought about racing but i m in debt and out of debt i cannot get without my father s so you see dearest i am more or less tied to th old man i am more or less in bondage i mean i cannot very well go to him and say that i have got engaged to a girl who has to work for her living he 