ing called away just now."

The tone was meant to be offhand, but the quick ear of Nidia was not so
easy to deceive. When John Ames did look down into the bright laughing
face it had taken an expression of sympathy, that with a quick bound of
the heart he read for one that was almost tender.

"Yes. It is horrid!" she agreed. "You had a long time to run yet,
hadn't you?"

"Nearly a month."

"I call it perfectly abominable. Can't you tell them it is absolutely
impossible to come back just now, that--er--in short, on no account can
you?"

He looked at her. "Do _you_ wish it?" was on his lips; but he left the
words unsaid. He shook his head sadly.

"I'm afraid it can't be done. You see, I am entirely at their beck and
call. And then, from what they say, I believe they really do want me."

"Yes; I was forgetting that. It is something, after all, to be of some
use, as I was telling you the other night; do you remember?"

Did he remember? Was there one word she had ever said to him--one look
she had ever given him--that he did not remember, that he had not
thought of, and weighed, and pondered over, in the dark silent hours of
the night, and in the fresh, but far from silent, hours of early
morning? No, indeed; not one.

"I remember every single word you have ever said to me," he answered
gravely, with his full straight glance meeting hers. And then it was
Nidia Commerell's turn to subside into silence, for there struck across
her mind, in all its force, the badinage she had exchanged with her
friend in the privacy of their chamber. If he had never before, as she
defined it, "hung out the signals," John Ames was beginning to do so
now--of that she felt very sure; yet somehow the thought, unlike in
other cases, inspired in her no derision, but a quickened beating of the
heart, and even a little pain, though why the latter she could not have
told.

"Come," she said suddenly, consulting her watch, "we must put on some
pace or we shall miss the train. We have some way to go yet."

On over the breezy flat of the Rondebosch camp-ground and between long
rows of cool firs meeting overhead; then a sharp turn and a spin of
straight road; and in spite of the recurring impediments of a stupidly
driven van drawn right across the way, and a long double file of
khaki-clad mounted infantry crossing at right angles and a foot's pace,
they reached the station in time, but only just. Then, as Nidia,
laughing and pant