with him, as with better
men. What sense was there in his long devotion to her? Why stand between
her and the far more natural choice of a lover nearer her years? "Like
unto like" was Nature's law. It was flying in the face of Providence to
expect to win the love of one so young and fair, when others so young
and comely craved it. The sweat was beaded on his forehead as he neared
the top and came in sight of the platform. Yes, they had no thought for
him. Already Mrs. Hoyt was half-way up the wooden stairs, and the others
were scattered more or less between that point and the platform at the
station. Far down at the south end paced the fur-clad sentry. There it
was an easy step from the track to the boards, and there, with much
laughter but no difficulty, the young officers had lifted their fair
charges to the walk. All were chatting gayly as they turned away to take
the wooden causeway from the station to the stairs, and Miss Renwick was
among the foremost at the point where it left the platform. Here,
however, she glanced back and then about her, and then, bending down,
began fumbling at the buttons of her boot.

"Oh, permit me, Miss Renwick," said her eager escort. "I will button
it."

"Thanks, no. Please don't wait, good people. I'll be with you in an
instant."

And so the other girls, absorbed in talk with their respective gallants,
passed her by, and then Alice Renwick again stood erect and looked
anxiously but quickly back.

"Captain Armitage is not in sight, and we ought not to leave him. He may
not find it easy to climb to that platform," she said.

"Armitage? Oh, he'll come on all right," answered the batteryman, with
easy assurance. "Maybe he has gone round by the road. Even if he hasn't,
I've seen him make that in one jump many a time. He's an active old
buffer for his years."

"But his wound may prove too much for that jump now. Ah there he comes,"
she answered, with evident relief; and just at the moment, too, the
forage-cap of the tall soldier rose slowly into view some distance up
the track, and he came walking slowly down on the sharp curve towards
the platform, the same sharp curve continuing on out of sight behind
him,--behind the high and rocky bluff.

"He's taken the long way up," said the gunner. "Well, shall we go on?"

"Not yet," she said, with eyes that were glowing strangely and a voice
that trembled. Her cheeks, too, were paling. "Mr. Stuart, I'm sure I
heard the roar of a train ech