er neighbors of current events, she could not take up a newspaper,
without reverting to her absent friend. She found herself constantly
harassed with the apprehension that he had not allowed himself time
really to recover, and that a fortnight's exposure would send him back
to the hospital. At last it occurred to her that civility required that
she should make a call upon Mrs. Martin, the Captain's sister; and a
vague impression that this lady might be the depositary of some farewell
message--perhaps of a letter--which she was awaiting her convenience to
present, led her at once to undertake this social duty. The carriage
which had been ordered for her projected visit was at the door, when,
within a week after Severn's departure, Major Luttrel was announced.
Gertrude received him in her bonnet. His first care was to present
Captain Severn's adieus, together with his regrets that he had not had
time to discharge them in person. As Luttrel made his speech, he watched
his companion narrowly, and was considerably reassured by the
unflinching composure with which she listened to it. The turn he had
given to Severn's message had been the fruit of much mischievous
cogitation. It had seemed to him that, for his purposes, the assumption
of a hasty, and as it were mechanical, allusion to Miss Whittaker, was
more serviceable than the assumption of no allusion at all, which would
have left a boundless void for the exercise of Gertrude's fancy. And he
had reasoned well; for although he was tempted to infer from her
calmness that his shot had fallen short of the mark, yet, in spite of
her silent and almost smiling assent to his words, it had made but one
bound to her heart. Before many minutes, she felt that those words had
done her a world of good. "He had not had time!" Indeed, as she took to
herself their full expression of perfect indifference, she felt that her
hard, forced smile was broadening into the sign of a lively gratitude to
the Major.

Major Luttrel had still another task to perform. He had spent half an
hour on the preceding day at Richard's bedside, having ridden over to
the farm, in ignorance of his illness, to see how matters stood with
him. The reader will already have surmised that the Major was not
pre-eminently a man of conscience: he will, therefore, be the less
surprised and shocked to hear that the sighs of the poor young man,
prostrate, fevered, and delirious, and to all appearance rapidly growing
worse, fil