lled an hour ago, with inquiries, the
maid reported. There! that must be the major's ring again--she hoped
she might know it by this time, indeed. In case it was the major,
would miss--

Yes; miss would see him. Ask him to wait. The maid's ear was true; it
was the major's ring. She came bounding upstairs to report on it, her
breath short, her eyes big.

"Oh, miss! I think something must 'a' happened to him, he looks all
shook!" she said.

"Nonsense!" said Frances, a little flutter of apprehension,
indefinable, cold, passing through her nerves in spite of her bearing
and calm face.

Major King had remained standing, waiting her. He was handsome and
trim in his uniform, dark-eyed, healthy-skinned, full of the vigor of
his young manhood. The major's face was pale, his carriage stiff and
severe. He appeared as if something might have happened to him,
indeed, or to somebody in whom he was deeply concerned.

Frances knew that her face was a picture of the worriment and
straining of her past night, for it was a treacherous mirror of her
soul. She smiled as she made a little pause in the reception-room
door. Major King bowed, with formal, almost official, dignity. His
hand was in the bosom of his coat, and he drew it forth with something
white in it as she approached.

"I'm dreadfully indolent to belong to a soldiering family, Major
King," she said, offering her hand in greeting.

"Permit me," said he, placing the folded white thing in her
outstretched fingers.

"What is it? Not--it isn't--" she stammered, something deeper than
surprise, than foreboding, in her eyes and colorless cheeks.

"Unmistakably yours," he said; "your name is stamped in it."

"It must be," she owned, her spirits sinking low, her breath weak
between her lips. "Thank you, Major King."

The glove was soiled with earth-marks; it was wrinkled and drawn, as
if it had come back to her through conflict and tragedy. She rolled it
deliberately, in a compact little wad, her fingers as cold as her hope
for the life of the man who had borne it away. She knew that Major
King was waiting for a word; she was conscious of his stern eyes upon
her face. But she did not speak. As far as Major King's part in it
went, the matter was at an end.

"Miss Landcraft, I am waiting."

Major King spoke with imperious suggestion. She started, and looked
toward him quickly, a question in her eyes.

"I sha'n't keep you then," she returned, her words little more than a