ny gal would do one
minnit from the next?" And that was all.

It was, therefore, something more than a surprise when the
sallow-faced, willowy girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and most demure
of manner, whom he remembered to have met in the gateway of Las Flores
early on the previous day, came to his tent and asked for him.

She introduced herself, and Philip was most polite.

"My father sent me----" she began.

"I ought to have waited on the President," he said, seeing that she
hesitated, "but several of my men are wounded, and we have so few
doctors."

She smiled, and Carmela could redeem much of her plainness of feature
by the singular charm of her smile.

"Dom Corria is a good doctor himself," she said.

"His skill will be much appreciated in Brazil at the present moment,"
said he, rather bewildered.

"He mends broken hearts," she persisted.

"Ah, a healer, indeed!" but he frowned a little.

"He is in demand to-day. He asked me to tell you of one most
successful operation. The--er--the engagement between Miss Iris
Yorke--is that the name?--and Mr.--Mr.--dear me----"

"Bulmer," scowled Philip, a block of ice in the warm air of Brazil.

"Yes, that is it--well--it is ended. She is free--for a little while."

There was a curious bleaching of Philip's weather-tanned face. It
touched a chord in Carmela's impulsive nature.

"It is all right," she nodded. "You can go to her."

She left him there, more shaken than he had ever been by thunderous sea
or screaming bullet.

"They are cold, these English," she communed, as she passed up the
slope to the house. "It takes something to rouse them. What would he
have said were he in Salvador's place last night!"

It did not occur to her that Philip could not possibly have been in
Salvador's place, since God has made as many varieties of men as of
berries, whereof some are wholesome and some poisonous, yet they all
have their uses. And she might have modified her opinion of his
coldness had she seen the manner of his meeting with Iris.

Visiting the sick is one of the Christian virtues, so Philip visited
Coke. Iris had just finished writing a letter, partly dictated, and
much altered in style, to Mrs. James Coke, Sea View, Ocean Road,
Birkenhead, when a gentle tap brought her to the door. She opened it.
Her wrist was seized, and she was drawn into the corridor. She had no
option in the matter. The tall young man who held her wrist proceeded
to squeez