ip's rescue.
She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is that
gratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to the
passionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet,
half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girl
weighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here is
dangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chats
to close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids a
man to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb.

Once--over a year ago--he had come to the colonel's quarters to seek
permission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She had
met him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feeling
far from well during the morning, and was now taking a nap.

"Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughingly
inquired.

"I would ask no better fate--for all time," was his prompt reply, and he
spoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she would
never again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in her
mind. She _must_ know if it be true that he is going.

"Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?"

"Yes," he answers, simply.

"And you are going--soon?"

"I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply.

"To-morrow! Why--Mr. Lee!"

There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he stands
and makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done to
deserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though in
adieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm.

"I--I thought all applications had to be made to--your commanding
officer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly.

"Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing about
it. The answer came by wire to-day."

"Major Wilton is _post_ commander; but--did you not--a year----?"

"Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you mean you have not
forgotten _that_? Do you mean that now--for all time--my first
allegiance shall be to you, Miriam?"

No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. At
last,--

"Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leave
to go?"

Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower under
the trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through his
heart.

But soon he