w feet away, realized
that it was nearly time for bed call and that he could not possibly make
it if he went back, then whirled about and started out on a wild run like
a madman over the ground he had just traveled. He was not conscious of
carrying on a train of thought as he ran, his only idea was to get to the
Y.M.C.A. hut before the man had left with the letter. Never should his
childhood's enemy have that letter to sneer over!

All the pleasant phrases which had flowed from his pen so easily but a
few moments before seemed to flare now in letters of fire before his
blood-shot eyes as he bounded over the ground. To think he should have
lowered himself and weakened his position so, as to write to the girl who
was soon to be the wife of that contemptible puppy!

The bugles began to sound taps here and there in the barracks as he flew
past, but they meant nothing to him. Breathless he arrived at the
Y.M.C.A. hut just as the last light was being put out. A dark figure
stood on the steps as he halted entirely winded, and tried to gasp out:
"Where is Mr. Hathaway?" to the assistant who was locking up.

"Oh, he left five minutes after you did," said the man with a yawn. "The
rector came by in his car and took him along. Say, you'll be late getting
in, Corporal, taps sounded almost five minutes ago."

With a low exclamation of disgust and dismay Cameron turned and started
back again in a long swinging stride, his face flushing hotly in the dark
over his double predicament. He had gone back for nothing and got himself
subject to a calling down, a thing which he had avoided scrupulously
since coming to camp, but he was so miserable over the other matter that
it seemed a thing of no moment to him now. He was altogether occupied
with metaphorically kicking himself for having answered that letter; for
having mailed it so soon without ever stopping to read it over or give
himself a chance to reconsider. He might have known, he might have
remembered that Ruth Macdonald was no comrade for him; that she was a
neighbor of the Wainwright's and would in all probability be a friend of
the lieutenant's. Not for all that he owned in the world or hoped to own,
would he have thus laid himself open to the possibility of having
Wainwright know any of his inner thoughts. He would rather have lived and
died unknown, unfriended, than that this should come to pass.

And she? The promised wife of Wainwright! Could it be? She must have
written h