“I have already said that we cannot manage without you, Miss Milton,” the Earl continued to argue.
“But you have to! Please – you must understand – you have to!”
There was a moment’s silence and then the Earl said,
“I cannot believe that any woman who is English would not at this moment feel it her patriotic duty to support our Armies. Lord Charles and I fought in the Peninsula and I can assure you that no soldiers could have been braver than our own and no other Army could have endured the hardship that our men suffered fighting their way through Portugal.”
For the first time the Earl was speaking with a sincerity and a feeling behind his words of which Salrina was very conscious.
Now she looked at him, her large eyes on his face, and instinctively she clasped her hands together.
“I
