developed womanhood suffered as
womanhood alone can suffer.

And yet, could she have drawn the veil once more before her eyes and so
have deadened that agonising pain, she would not have done so.

She was awake now. The long, long sleep with its gay dreams, its
careless illusions, was over. But it was better to be awake, better to
see and know things as they were, even if the anguish thereof killed
her. And so she refused the hushing comfort that only a child--such a
child as she had been but yesterday--could have found satisfying.

"Yes, I can tell you--now--why he went," she said, in that tense whisper
which so wrung Mrs. Raleigh's heart. "He went--for my sake! Think of it!
Think of it! He went because I was fretting about Phil. He went
because--because he thought--- that Phil's safety--meant--my happiness,
and that _his_ safety--his--his precious life--didn't--count!"

The awful words sank into breathless silence. Mrs. Raleigh was crying
silently. She was powerless to cope with this. But Audrey shed no tears.
It was beyond tears and beyond mourning--this terrible revelation that
had come to her. By-andby, it might be, both would come to her, if she
lived.

She rose suddenly at length with a sharp gasp, as of one seeking air.

"I am going," she said, in a clear, strong voice, "to the colonel. He
will help me to save my husband."

And with that she turned to the veranda, and met the commanding-officer
face to face. There was another man behind him, but she did not look at
him. She instantly, without a second's pause, addressed the colonel.

"I was coming to you," she said through her white lips. "You will help
me. You must help me. My husband is a prisoner, and I am going into the
Hills to find him. You must follow with men and guns. He must be
saved--whatever it costs."

The colonel laid his hand on her shoulder, looking down at her very
earnestly, very kindly.

"My dear Mrs. Tudor," he said, "all that can be done shall be done, all
that is humanly possible. I have already told Turner so. Did you know
that he was safe?"

He drew her forward a step, and she saw that the man behind him was Phil
Turner himself--Phil Turner, grave, strong, resolute, with all his
manhood strung up to the moment's emergency, all his boyhood submerged
in a responsibility that overwhelmed the lesser part of him, leaving
only that which was great.

He went straight up to Audrey and took the hands she stretched out to
him. Neithe