thanks.

Broussard, under cover of the darkness, took his way to the quarters
which Mrs. Lawrence had never left. He knocked and, receiving no answer,
entered the narrow passage-way and walked into the little sitting-room.
Lawrence lay back in the arm chair in which his wife had spent so many
hours of helpless misery. His face was paler than ever and his lank hair
lay damp upon his forehead. Mrs. Lawrence, who had been suffering from
the cruel malady known as a shamed and broken heart, sat by her husband,
speaking words of cheer and tenderness. As Broussard entered she rose to
her feet with new energy, no longer tottering as she walked, and placed
both arms about Broussard's neck.

"Oh, my brother! The best of brothers," she cried and could say no more
for her tears.

Presently they were sitting together, all externally calm, but all filled
with a tense emotion.

"Try to persuade her," said Lawrence to Broussard, "to go away before the
court-martial sits. It will be too much for her."

Mrs. Lawrence turned her dark eyes, once tragic but now brimming with
light, full on Broussard. Broussard said to Lawrence:

"These angelic women are very obstinate."

"Would your mother, of whom my husband has told me so much, go away if
she were in my place?"

Both Broussard and Lawrence remained silent.

"Then," said Mrs. Lawrence, "can you blame me if I act as your mother
would act?"

Broussard took her hand and kissed it; the marks of toil upon it went to
his soul.

"But the boy must be sent away," cried Lawrence.

"Yes, he may go," replied Mrs. Lawrence, "but I shall stay."

It was nearly seven o'clock, the hour for dinner at the officers' club,
before Broussard left the Lawrences' quarters. All the men at the club
were delighted to see Broussard, and all of them told him he looked seedy
and every one who had served in the Philippines and had caught the jungle
fever proposed a different regimen for him, but all agreed that Fort
Blizzard was a good place to recuperate and that the "old man," as the
commanding officer is always called, was rather a decent fellow, and
might let him stay, and then they plunged into garrison news and gossip.
Broussard was thoroughly glad to be back once more at the handsome mess
table, with the bright faces of the subalterns around him and the cheery
talk and honest laughter, but his heart was full of other things--Anita
Fortescue, for instance, and Lawrence and his wife and the l