olite. I've met
him--and his friends--several times. They're too fast a string of
colts for me. But isn't it a shame that a man like Berkley should
go to the devil--and for no reason at all?"

"Yes," she said.

When Stephen, swinging his crimson fez by the tassel, stood ready
to take his leave, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

After he departed Colonel Arran came, and sat, as usual, silent,
listening.

Ailsa was very animated; she told him about Stephen's enlistment,
asked scores of questions about military life, the chances in
battle, the proportion of those who went through war unscathed.

And at length Colonel Arran arose to take his departure; and she
had not told what was hammering for utterance in every heart beat;
she did not know how to tell, what to ask.

Hat in hand Colonel Arran bent over her hot little hand where it
lay in his own.

"I have been offered the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment now
forming," he said without apparent interest.

"You!"

"Cavalry," he explained wearily.

"But--you have not accepted!"

He gave her an absent glance. "Yes, I have accepted. . . . I am
going to Washington to-night."

"Oh!" she breathed, "but you are coming back before--before----"

"Yes, child. Cavalry is not made in a hurry. I am to see General
Scott--perhaps Mr. Cameron and the President. . . . If, in my
absence--" he hesitated, looked down, shook his head. And somehow
she seemed to know that what he had not said concerned Berkley.

Neither of them mentioned him. But after Colonel Arran had gone
she went slowly to her room, sat down at her desk, sat there a
long, long while thinking. But it was after midnight before she
wrote to Berkley:

"Have you quite forgotten me? I have had to swallow a little pride
to write you again. But perhaps I think our pleasant friendship
worth it.

"Stephen has been here. He has enlisted as a private in his
father's regiment of zouaves. I learned by accident from him that
you are no longer associated with Craig & Son in business. I trust
this means at least a partial recovery of your fortune. If it
does, with fortune recovered responsibilities increase, and I
choose to believe that it is these new and exacting duties which
have prevented me from seeing you or from hearing from you for more
than three weeks.

"But surely you could find a moment to write a line to a friend who
is truly your very sincere well-wisher, and who would