bore the White Sisters over Hongkong way
within a week; and they left without flourish of trumpet, with hardly the
flutter of a handkerchief; for, since the battle of the 5th of February,
neither had been seen upon the Luneta. Their women friends were very few;
the men they knew were mainly at the front. The story got out somehow
that Garrison had asked to be relieved from further duty as aide-de-camp,
and returned to duty with his regiment, and that Drayton would not have
it. The General's manner toward that hard-working staff officer, though
often preoccupied as of old, grew even kinder. He did not see the sisters
off for China, he was "far too busy" was the explanation; but he offered
Garrison a fortnight's leave, and urged his taking it, and was obviously
troubled when Garrison declined. "You need rest and the change of air
more than any man I know," said he; but Garrison replied that change of
scene and air would not help him.

There were two young fellows in khaki uniforms landed from the hospital
launch on the back trip from Corregidor one warm March day. One wore the
badge of a subaltern of the --teenth Regulars, the other the chevrons of
a corporal and the hatband of a famous fighting regiment of volunteers;
yet the same carriage bore them swiftly through the sentineled streets of
the walled city, and the guards at the Ayuntamiento sprang to their arms
and formed ranks at sight of it, then dispersed at the low-toned order of
its commander when it was seen that, instead of stopping at the curb and
discharging an elderly general officer, it whirled straight by and held
two youths in field uniform.

"One of 'em's young Gray, of the --teenth; he that was hit in the charge
on the Pasay road," said the officer of the guard to a comrade. "But who
the devil's the other? He had corporal's chevrons on. Some fellow just
got a commission, perhaps." And that was the only way the soldier could
account for a corporal riding with a commissioned officer in a general's
carriage. They had a long whirl ahead of them, these two; and the
corporal told Gray, as he already had the General and Colonel Armstrong,
much of the story of his friendship for "Pat" Latrobe, of that poor
fellow's illness at San Francisco, and all the trouble it cost his friend
and chum. There was a strong bond between them, he explained; and the
blush of shame that stole up in the face of the narrator found instant
answer in that of Billy Gray. Determined to se