was what was said to one another in excited
household chat. What was written was more diplomatic, but quite to the
purpose. They could not endorse his choice, and he could not assure his
proud, independent lady-love that they would. "He was awfully in love
once before for years, and got over it," said Floyd's married sister,
"and he'll get over this."

But there were those nearest to Captain Forrest about that time who
arrived at a widely different conclusion. Jenny Wallen might have
yielded could she have seen him and listened. Perhaps that was why she
would not. It was no longer "Starkey's friend" who waylaid her on her
homeward walks in the gloaming,--it was Captain Floyd Forrest, when he
could get to town, and she took long, roundabout ways of reaching home
and outmanoeuvred her soldier. With her whole heart crying out against
her, pleading for him and home and love and protection, she stilled it
like the sturdy little aristocrat she was, and would have none of him or
his. "What can one do with a girl like that?" asked Mrs. Cranston of her
grizzled major one bleak November evening on her return from town. "She
has told Mrs. Wells that she is going to leave her roof and live with
Miss Bonner away down on the south side, and it's all because Forrest is
received at the Wellses' and she is determined not to see him." The
major was hard-hearted enough to say he believed that interference even
on Meg's part would only make matters worse.

But the captain heard of the proposed move, and then he placed in Mrs.
Wells's hands a brief note. He was conquered now. Rather than see her
leave the roof of such devoted friends, he pledged himself to vex her no
more. Neither there nor on her homeward way would he seek to speak with
her again. Jenny, yielding perhaps as much to the Wellses' pleading as
to this, remained. What ever could be the outcome? was now the question.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Meantime the little blind god was working a combination of his own. One
stinging wintry evening, when the wind was whistling from the northwest
and a cold wave of most approved and vicious pattern had swooped down on
Chicago, when the pavements were coated with ice and the populace with
extra garments, and the visible features of pedestrians were
unbecomingly red, a tall, soldierly-looking man, garbed in furs, was
patrolling an up-town street and keeping anxious watch across the way.
He had not promised