id, when he emerged. "You sign that."

Margaret took the paper and tried to read what he had written. But,
unfamiliar with hieroglyphics, his handiwork was lost upon her.

"I cannot read it," she said presently; "the light is very bad."

"That's so--besides it's too infernal cold to read--I'm awful cold. I
wisht that cove in there'd get a move on him, an' get better. He's got a
snap. Some one sent him a bottle of milk to-day, too," he concluded,
with a solemn wink, the tongue again appearing on the scene to bear
internal witness--"but I forgot--I'll read them words to you myself,"
which he proceeded to do, swaying gently, for the spirit of rhetoric
was within him.

"This is it," he began, "'I'm the party what's meant to nurse the man
what's got the smallpox, an' I got in because I wanted to'--that's all
right, ain't it? Now you sign that, an' if you die, that'll protect me
after you're dead. And I'll sign it too, and if I die, it'll protect you
after I'm dead, see? And if we both die, it'll protect the officer after
we're both dead, see? And if he dies, then we'll all be protected,
because we'll all be dead, see? You keep the paper, and I'll keep the
pencil, and we'll both keep our job, see? Gee whittaker! Ain't it cold!
I wisht they'd send some more milk."

Impatient for a release, Margaret signed the document. After its author
had made another picturesque pilgrimage to the gas lamp and back again,
the signature was fervently commended, with signs of increasing emotion;
he returned the letter to her--and she passed on into the house at which
none but love or death would have asked for bed and board.

There are a thousand streams that flow from Calvary. But the deepest of
these is joy. Wherefore as Margaret walked into the darkened house, her
heart thrilled with a sudden rapture it had never known before. For he
was there--and she would be beside him in a moment--and they would be
together--and none could break in upon them, for grim death himself
would guard the door. He was helpless too, dependent on weak arms that
love would gird with might--and this makes a woman's happiness complete;
when love and service wed, joy is their first-born child.

She was now standing at the door of his room, her eyes fixed upon the
face of the man she loved, radiant with victory.

He had heard her footfall from the threshold, and his heart clutched
each one as it fell. Yes, it was she, and the music of her rustling
garments had