She did not in the least expect him to fall in love with her; yet there was a dim, intermittent fear in her lest he might become too important to her, together with a sharp shrinking from the news, which of course might come any day, that he was going to be married.
She had known him from her childhood, had romped and sparred with him.

He was the gayest, most charming companion; yet he carried with him, quite unconsciously, something that made it delightful to be smiled at or praised by him, and a distress when you did not get on with him, and were quite certain that he thought you silly or selfish.

There was a rumour which reached Mannering after the second battle of Ypres that he had been killed.

The Chicksands' household believed it for twenty-four hours.
Then he was discovered--gassed and stunned--in a shell-hole, and there had been a long illness and convalescence.

During the twenty-four hours when he was believed to be dead, Pamela had spent the April daylight in the depths of the Mannering woods, in tangled hiding-places that only she knew.