soldier?"

"Possibly you forget," I explained, striving to speak as lightly of it
as might be, "that there is a lack of friendship between Major Brennan
and myself."

"Still?" she asked. "Truly I thought that might all be over. Even if it
survived until now, this noble act of yours in coming to our defence
should have earned you his gratitude. He--he has never once mentioned
your name to me since that night."

"Not even when I came here with my troop, I believe?"

"No; yet I did not connect that fact with the other. I supposed it a
mere oversight, or that he believed the mention of your name would not
greatly interest me. Surely, Captain Wayne, you are not keeping open
this unhappy wound?"

"On my word, no; but I regret to confess it is very far from being
closed."

"He--Major Brennan does not know, then, that you are here now with me?"
She evidently hesitated to ask this question.

"Certainly not," in surprise at her apparent innocence. "You cannot
have supposed I had been sent here by him to talk with you?"

"I--I did not know. I do not think I realized," she stammered, vainly
seeking for words with which to make clear her bewilderment. "I
imagined you might have come at his suggestion to see that we were