rry another man, she had always been his ideal of a beautiful,
lovable woman, and as such she should stay his, even if she married a
dozen enemy officers!

It was then he began to see that the thing that was really making him
miserable was that she was giving her sweet young life to such a rotten
little mean-natured man as Wainwright. That was the real pain. If some
fine noble man like--well--like Captain La Rue, only younger, of course,
should come along he would be glad for her. But this excuse for a man!
Oh, it was outrageous! How could she be so deceived? and yet, of course,
women knew very little of men. They had no standards by which to judge
them. They had no opportunity to see them except in plain sight of those
they wished to please. One could not expect them to have discernment in
selecting their friends. But what a pity! Things were all wrong! There
ought to be some way to educate a woman so that she would realize the
dangers all about her and be somewhat protected. It was worse for Ruth
Macdonald because she had no men in her family who could protect her. Her
old grandfather was the only near living male relative and he was a
hopeless invalid, almost entirely confined to the house. What could he
know of the young men who came to court his granddaughter? What did he
remember of the ways of men, having been so many years shut away from
their haunts?

The corporal tossed on his hard cot and sighed like a furnace. There
ought to be some one to protect her. Someone ought to make her understand
what kind of a fellow Wainwright was! She had called him her knight, and
a knight's business was to protect, yet what could he do? He could not go
to her and tell her that the man she was going to marry was rotten and
utterly without moral principle. He could not even send some one else to
warn her. Who could he send? His mother? No, his mother would feel shy
and afraid of a girl like that. She had always lived a quiet life. He
doubted if she would understand herself how utterly unfit a mate
Wainwright was for a good pure girl. And there was no one else in the
world that he could send. Besides, if she loved the man, and
incomprehensible as it seemed, she must love him or why should she marry
him?--if she loved him she would not believe an angel from heaven against
him. Women were that way; that is, if they were good women, like Ruth.
Oh, to think of her tied up to that--_beast!_ He could think of no other
word. In his agon