ment she stood leaning
against it, breathing fast; then she turned and stole through to
the back entrance, traversed the lower gallery, and came into Dr.
West's office, offering Hallam a lifeless hand.

They talked of everything--every small detail concerning their
personal participation in the stirring preparations which were
going on all around them; gossip of camp, of ambulance; political
rumours, rumours from home and abroad; and always, through her
brain, ran the insistent desire to know what Berkley was doing in
his regiment; how he stood; what was thought of him; whether the
Colonel had yet noticed him. So many, many things which she had
supposed no longer interested her now came back to torment her into
inquiry. . . . And Hallam talked on, his handsome sun-bronzed face
aglow, his eager eyes of a lover fastened on her and speaking to
her a different but silent language in ardent accompaniment to his
gaily garrulous tongue.

"I tell you, Ailsa, I witnessed a magnificent sight yesterday.
Colonel Rush's regiment of lancers, a thousand strong, rode into
the meadow around Meridian Hill, and began to manoeuvre at full
speed, not far away from us. Such a regiment! Every man a
horseman; a thousand lances with scarlet pennons fluttering in the
sunlight! By ginger! it was superb! And those Philadelphians of
the 6th Pennsylvania Lancers can give our 8th Lancers a thousand
keener points than the ends of their lance blades!"

"I thought your regiment was a good one," she said surprised.

"It is--for greenhorns. Every time we ride out past some of these
dirty blue regiments from the West, they shout: 'Oh my! Fresh
fish! Fresh fish!' until our boys are crazy to lay a lance butt
across their ragged blouses."

"After all," said Ailsa, smiling, "what troops have really seen war
yet--except the regiments at Bull Run--and those who have been
fighting in the West?"

"Oh, we _are_ fresh fish," laughed Hallam. "I don't deny it. But
Lord! what an army we _look_ like! It ought to scare the Johnnies
into the Union again, just to look at us; but I don't suppose it
will."

Ailsa scarcely heard him; she had caught the sound of regular and
steady steps moving up and down the wooden walk outside; and she
had caught glimpses, too, of a figure in the starlight, of two
figures, Berkley and Letty, side by side, pacing the walk together.

To and fro, to and fro, they passed, until it seemed as though she
could not endure it.