hanically. Her thoughts
were going farther; for grant the facts, what did the reasons matter?

"There's a good deal to do sometimes," Evan answered in the same way,
thinking of more than he chose to speak. They stood silent again
awhile. Diana was clasped in Knowlton's arms; her cheek rested on his
shoulder; they both looked to the fire for consolation. Snapping,
sparkling, glowing, as it has done in the face of so many of our
sorrows, small and great, is there no consolation or suggestion to be
got out of it? Perhaps from it came the suggestion at last that they
should sit down. Evan brought a chair for Diana and placed one for
himself close beside it, and they sat down, holding fast each other's
hands.

Was it also the counsel of the fire that they should sit there all
night? For it was what they did. The fire burned gloriously; the lamp
went out; the red lights leaped and flickered all over floor and
ceiling; and in front of the blaze sat the two, and talked; enough to
last two years, you and I might say; but alas! to them it was but a
whetting of the appetite that was to undergo such famine.

"If I could only take you with me, my darling!" Evan said for the
twentieth time. And Diana was silent at first; then she said,

"It would be pleasant to go through hardships together."

"No, it wouldn't!" said Evan. "Not hardships for you, my beauty! They
are all very well for me; in a soldier's line; but not for you!"

"A soldier's wife ought not to be altogether unworthy of him," Diana
answered.

"Nor he of her. So I wouldn't take you if I could where I am going. A
soldier's wife will have hardships enough, first and last, no fear; but
some places are not fit for women anyhow. I wish I could have seen Mrs.
Starling, though, and had it out with her."

"Had it out!" repeated Diana.

"Yes. I should have a little bit of a fight, shouldn't I? She _don't_
like me much. I wonder why?"

"Evan," said Diana after a minute's thought, "if you are to be so long
away, there is no need to speak to anybody about our affair just now.
It is our affair; let it stay so. It is our secret. I should like it
much better to keep it a secret. I don't want to hear people's talk.
Will you?"

"But our letters, my dear; they will tell your mother."

"Mother will not see mine. And she is not likely to see yours; I shall
go to the post office myself. If she did, and found it out, I could
keep _her_ quiet easily enough. She would not want to