o women
could accompany the expedition, and, shipping his chest and desks by the
transport, he had secured passage for himself and wife to Hongkong on one
of the splendid steamers of the English line from Vancouver, and so
informed her. It dashed Nita's last hope. They were occupying fine rooms
at the Palace Hotel. The city was thronged with officers and rapidly
arriving troops. Other army women, eager to accompany their husbands,
were railing at the fate that separated them, and Nita had been forced to
conceal the joy with which she heard their lamentations. But she had yet
to learn how exacting Frost could be. It had never occurred to her that
he could obtain permission to go except by transport. It had not seemed
possible that he would take her with him. "You should have known," said
he, "that even if I had had to go by transport, you would have gone by
the Empress of India. It is only sixty hours from Manila to Hongkong, and
I could have joined you soon after your arrival. As it is I shall see you
safely established there--I have letters to certain prominent English
people--then shall go over to join the fleet when it arrives in Manila
Bay."

That night she wrote long and desperately to Margaret. "He swore he would
follow me wherever we went until I granted him the interview. You know
how he dogged me in Washington, followed me to Denver, and any moment he
may address me here. F. will not let me return to you. He insists on my
going to Hongkong, where he can occasionally join me. But Rollin holds
those letters over me like a whip, and declares that he will give them
into Frost's hands unless I see him whenever he presents himself. You
made me swear to Frost I never cared a straw for my darling that was. O
God, how I loved him! and if these letters ever reach the man to whom you
have sold me, he would treat me as he would a dog, even if he doesn't
kill me. Meg--Meg--you must help me for I live in terror."

And that she lived in terror was true, some women were quick to see.
Never would she go anywhere, even along the corridor, alone. If the
colonel could not come to luncheon she was served in their rooms. If she
had to go calling or shopping it was in a carriage and always with some
army woman whom she could persuade to go with her.

One day, just before their intended departure, she drove out paying
parting calls. It was quite late when the carriage drew up at the Market
Street entrance, the nearest to their eleva