n he did not
remember Duncan, and to Irene he was like a fixed part of the scheme of
nature. He had one defect which at this instant made him invaluable. He
resented any imputation of the fact angrily, but he had been deaf as an
adder for years.

There was no great privacy in a barrack square, to be sure, but it was
as safe to talk within arm's length of Duncan as if he had been a stone
Sphinx. Duncan was a man of rare discretion, and, though it must have
been like an upheaval of the world to him to see the most constant
of visitors at the General's modest little mansion, walking in shabby
raiment in a barrack square with a recruit's ribbons fluttering from
his cap, he saluted imperturbably as the young man came up, and then sat
motionless.

Polson came to the side of the carriage, cap in hand.

'Your father told me I might speak to you,' he said wistfully. 'I hope I
am not wrong in coming to you.'

'You have enlisted?' she asked him. 'You are going to the war?' Her
self-possession cost her an effort, but she maintained it She had a
soldier's daughter's pride, and though she had met this first great
trouble so brief a time ago she had already taught herself to face it.
Her father was a man conspicuously brave among the brave, and he had
told her of his very first experience of war--a period of prolonged
inaction under fire. 'A trying thing at first,' he had said, 'but duty
will reconcile one to anything.' This memory had been present with
her all the morning, and though the unexpected sight of her lost lover
almost broke her down, the thought had had power to nerve her.

'Yes,' he answered simply. 'I have enlisted. I shall have to go through
a certain amount of drill, but that will soon be over, and then, I
suppose, I shall get my marching orders.'

'Father approves of what you have done,' she said.

'He has told me so,' he responded. 'I am very glad of it. God is good
to me,' he went on, turning half away from her and gazing across the
square. 'I had not hoped to see you again for years, if ever, and there
is just one thing I wanted very much to say. It is of no use to have
reserves and disguises at a time like this. I shan't distress you? Can
you let me speak?'

'Put your cap on, Polson,' she said composedly. 'You will catch cold.'

The touch of womanly solicitude, small as it was, moved him. He obeyed
her, and stood, still looking across the square, until he had mastered a
suspicious clicking in the throat