"But you can't 'bar' fate. Listen: this is a supposing, you know. Suppose
that an accident had happened to our leader on the way home--to your
Lieutenant Winslow, we'll say"--

"_My_ lieutenant!"

"Your father's--the regiment's--Lieutenant Winslow 'of ours.' Suppose we
had brought him back in a state to need a surgeon's help; and without a
word to any one he should get up and walk out of the hospital with his
hurts not healed, and no one knew why, or where he had gone? There would
be a stir about it, would there not? And if such a poor spectre of a
bridegroom as I were allowed to join the search, no one would think it
strange, or call it a slight to his bride if the fellow went?"

"I take your case," said Moya with a beaming look. "You want to go after
that poor man who suffered with you."

"Who went with us to save us from our own headstrong folly, and would have
died there alone"--

"Yes; oh, yes!--before you begin to think about yourself, or me. Because
he is nobody 'of ours,' and no one seems to feel responsible, and we go on
talking and laughing just the same!"

"Do they talk of this downstairs?"

"To-night they were talking--oh, with such philosophy! But how came you to
know it?"

Paul did not answer this question. "Then"--he drew a long breath,--"then