knew the footfall.
She distinguished it from every other. Scores of times in the
watches of the night she had lain and listened to it, hearing it in
imagination only, echoed from memory, yet distinct upon the ear as
the tramp of an actual foot, manly and booted; hearing it always with
a sense of helplessness, as though with that certain deliberate tread
marched her fate upon her, inexorably nearing. This once again--she
told herself--it must be in fancy that she heard it. For how should
_he_ be in Bath?

She stepped quickly out through the porchway to assure herself.
She stood there a moment, while her eyes accustomed themselves to the
sunlight, and Captain Hanmer came towards her from the shadow of the
colonnade by the great Pump-room. He carried his left arm in a
sling, and with his right hand lifted his hat, but awkwardly.

"I had heard of your promotion," she said after they had exchanged
greetings, "and of your wound, and I dare say you will let me
congratulate you on both, since the same gallantry earned them.
. . . But what brings you to Bath? . . . To drink the waters, I
suppose, and help your convalescence."

"They have a great reputation," he answered gravely; "but I have
never heard it claimed that they can extract a ball or the splinters
from a shattered forearm. The surgeons did the one, and time must do
the other, if it will be so kind. . . . No, I am in Bath because my
mother lives here. It is my native city, in fact."

"Ah," she said, "I was wondering--"

"Wondering?" He echoed the word after a long pause. He was plainly
surprised. "You knew that I was here, then?"

"Not until a moment ago, when I heard your footstep." As this
appeared to surprise him still more, she added, "You have, whether
you know it or not, a noticeable footstep, and I a quick ear.
Shall I tell you where, unless fancy played me a trick, I last proved
its quickness?"

He bent his head as sign for assent.

"It was in Boston," she said, "last June--on the evening after the
fight at Bunker Hill. At midnight, rather. Before seven o'clock the
hospitals were full, and they brought half a dozen poor fellows to my
lodgings in Garden Court Street. Towards midnight one of them, that
had lain all the afternoon under the broiling sun by the _Mystic_ and
had taken a sunstroke on top of his wound, began raving. My maid and
I were alone in the house, and we agreed that he was dangerous.
I told her that there was nothin