s quarters. Mrs.
Lysle was standing on the steps, her eyes fixed on the far horizon
across which a ship had melted away.

"Beg pardon, madam," said the orderly, saluting, "but young O'Keefe
is very ill. We have had the surgeon, but the--the--pain's getting
worse. He's just yelling with agony."

"I'll go at once, orderly. I should have been told before," she
replied; and burying her own heartache, she hurried to the men's
quarters. Her anxious eyes sought the surgeon's. "Oh, doctor!" she
said, "this poor fellow must be looked after. What can I do to
help?"

"Everything, Mrs. Lysle," gruffed the surgeon with a professional
air. "He is very ill. He must be kept wrapped in hot linseed
poultices and--"

"Oh, I say, doctor," remonstrated poor O'Keefe, "I'm not that bad."

"You're a very sick man," scowled the surgeon. "Now, Mrs. Lysle has
graciously offered to help nurse you. She'll see that you have hot
fomentations every half hour. I'll drop in twice a day to see how
you are getting along." And with that miserable prospect before
him, poor O'Keefe watched the surgeon disappear.

"I simply _had_ to order those half-hour fomentations, old man,"
apologized the surgeon that night. "You see, she must be kept
busy--just kept at it every minute we can make her do so. Do you
think you can stand it?"

"Of course I can," fumed the victim. "But for goodness' sake, don't
put me on sick rations! I'll die, sure, if you do."

"I've ordered you the best the commissariat boasts--heaps of meat,
butter, even eggs, my boy. Think of it--_eggs_--you lucky young
Turk!" laughed the surgeon.

Then followed nights and days of torture. The "boys" would line up
to the "sick-room" four times daily, and blandly ask how he was.

"How _am_ I?" young O'Keefe would bellow. "How _am_ I? I'm well and
strong enough to brain every one of you fellows, surgeon included,
when I get out of this!"

"But when _are_ you going to get out? When will you be out danger?"
they would chuckle.

"Just when I see that haunted look go out of her eyes, and not till
then!" he would roar.

And he kept his word. He was really weak when he got up, and
pretended to be weaker, but the lines of acute self-control had
left Mrs. Lysle's face, the suffering had gone from her eyes, the
day the noble O'Keefe took his first solid meal in her presence.

Even the major never discovered that worthy bit of deception. But
a year later, when the mail went out, the surgeon sent