his way, and then at a distance followed the other one until he was
quite certain. He walked back thoughtfully trying to make it out. Had
Wainwright then been at the bottom of his trouble that day? It began to
seem quite possible. And how had Ruth Macdonald happened to be so
opportunely present at the right moment? How had she happened to turn
down that road, a road that was seldom used by people going to Baltimore?
It was all very strange and had never been satisfactorily explained. Ruth
had evaded the question most plausibly every time he had brought it up.
Could it be that Wainwright had told her of a plot against him and she
had reached out to help him? His heart leaped at the thought. Then at
once he was sure that Wainwright had never told her, unless perhaps he
had told some tale against him, and made him the butt of a great joke.
Well, if he had she had cared enough to defend him and help him out
without ever giving away the fact that she knew. But here, too, lay a
thorn to disturb him. Why had Ruth Macdonald not told him the plain truth
if she knew? Was she trying to shield Harry Wainwright? Could she really
care for that contemptible scoundrel?

The thought in all its phases tore his mind and kept him awake for hours,
for the crux of the whole matter was that he was afraid that Ruth
Macdonald was going to marry Lieutenant Wainwright, and he knew that it
was not only for her sake, but for his also that he did not want
this--that it was agony even to contemplate.

He told himself, of course, that his interest was utterly unselfish. That
she was nothing to him but a friend and never would be, and that while it
might be hard to see her belong to some fine man and know he never might
be more than a passing friend, still it would not be like seeing her tied
to a rotten unprincipled fellow like Wainwright. The queer part of it was
that the word "rotten" in connection with his enemy played a great part
in his thoughts that night.

Somewhere in the watches of the night a memory came to him of the
covenant he had made that day and a vague wistful reaching of his heart
after the Christ to whom he was supposed to have surrendered his life. He
wondered if a Christ such as the stranger had claimed He had, would take
an interest in the affairs of Ruth Macdonald. Surely, such a flower of a
girl would be protected if there was protection for anyone! And somehow
he managed a queer little prayer for her, the first he had tried