rief note which so troubled him. She sent it and then was sorry she
had not obeyed the impulse of the kindlier hour.

The nobler woman instinct is apt to be armed by nature for defensive
warfare. If she has imagination, she has in hours of doubt some sense of
humiliation in the vast surrender of marriage. This accounts for certain
of the cases of celibate women, who miss the complete life and have no
ready traitor within the guarded fortress to open the way to love. Some
such instinctive limitations beset Leila Grey. The sorrow of a great, a
nearer and constant affection came to her aid. To think of anything like
love, even if again it questioned her, was out of the question while
before her eyes James Penhallow was fading in mind.

John Penhallow was shortly relieved by McGregor's order that he should
get some exercise. It enabled him to escape the early surgical visit and
the diverse odours of surgical dressings which lingered in the long ward
while breakfast was being served. There were more uneasy sleepers than he
in the ward and much pain, and crippled men with little to look forward
to. The suffering he saw and could not lessen had been for John one of
the depressing agencies of this hospital life. The ward was quiet when he
awoke at dawn of April 13th. He quickly summoned an orderly and endured
the daily humiliation of being dressed like a baby. He found Josiah
waiting with the camp-chair at the door as he came out of the ward.

"How you feeling, Master John?"

"Rather better. What time is it? That Reb stole my watch." Even yet it
was amusing. He laughed at the remembrance of having been relieved by the
prisoners of purse and watch.

For Josiah to extract his own watch was as McGregor said something
like a surgical operation. "It's not goin', Master John. It's been losing
time--like it wasn't accountable. What's it called watch for if it don't
watch?"

This faintly amused John. He said no more, but sat enjoying the early
morning quiet, the long hazy reaches of the James River, the awakening of
life here and there, and the early stir among the gun-boats.

"Get me some coffee, Josiah," he said. "I am like your watch, losing time
and everything else."

Josiah stood over him. His unnatural depression troubled a simple mind
made sensitive by a limitless affection and dog-like power to feel
without comprehending the moods of the master.

"Captain John, you was sayin' to me yesterday you was most unfortunate. I