t is a poor
enough acknowledgment of what you did,--for we have not always treated
you well." Her voice faltered almost to faintness, as he raised his hand
in pained protest. But she continued: "I shall regard it as a debt I can
never repay. It is not likely that in my life to come I can ever help
you, but I shall pray for that opportunity."

He interrupted her.

"I did nothing, Miss Carvel, nothing that the most unfeeling man in our
army would not do. Nothing that I would not have done for the merest
stranger."

"You saved him for me," she said.

O fateful words that spoke of themselves! She turned away from him for
very shame, and yet she heard him saying:-- "Yes, I saved him for you."

His voice was in the very note of the sadness which has the strength to
suffer, to put aside the thought of self. A note to which her soul
responded with anguish when she turned to him with the natural cry of
woman.

"Oh, you ought not to have come here to-night. Why did you come? The
Doctor forbade it. The consequences may kill you."

"It does not matter much," he answered. "The Judge was dying."

"How did you know?"

"I guessed it,--because my mother had left me."

"Oh, you ought not to have come!" she said again.

"The Judge has been my benefactor," he answered quietly. I could walk,
and it was my duty to come."

"You did not walk!" she gasped.

He smiled, "I had no carriage," he said.

With the instinct of her sex she seized the chair and placed it under
him. "You must sit down at once," she cried.

"But I am not tired," he replied.

"Oh, you must sit down, you must, Captain Brice." He started at the
title, which came so prettily from her lips, "Won't you please!" she said
pleadingly.

He sat down. And, as the sun peeps out of a troubled sky, she smiled.

"It is your chair," she said.

He glanced at the book, and the bit of sky was crimson. But still he said
nothing.

"It is your book," she stammered. "I did not know that it was yours when
I took it down. I--I was looking at it while I was waiting for Clarence."

"It is dry reading," he remarked, which was not what he wished to say.

"And yet--"

"Yes?"

"And yet you have read it twice." The confession had slipped to her lips.

She was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking down at him. Still he
did not look at her. All the will that was left him averted his head. And
the seal of honor was upon his speech. And he wondered if man were ever
more te