est until ready to occupy his
own quarters. Dwight came earlier than had been expected; explained that
he "came ahead to select quarters," would send Mrs. Dwight the
measurements of the rooms, then ask for a week's leave to return and
fetch her with their goods, carpets and variegated chattels from
Chicago. Had any letters or dispatches been received for him? None?
Dwight looked queer and grave. Indeed, Stone, who had heard much of him
and had met him once or twice in by-gone days, confessed to his wife
that Dwight must have "gone off" not a little in more ways than one. Was
it the old sorrow or--the new wife--or, mayhap, the sunstroke in the
Pampangas?

That afternoon Marion Ray, seated on the vine-shaded piazza, writing to
her husband, looked up suddenly at sound of a footstep and, startled and
for a moment speechless, gazed into the once familiar features of
Margaret Dwight's once devoted husband. She was slow to rise and hold
forth her hand, so strange was the expression in his tired eyes. When
she could speak it was to say, though her heart fluttered, "Welcome
again, Major Dwight, but I'm so sorry Will is not here, too! It is
barely a week since he started."

"I have hurried," was the answer, as he took her hand. "I am so tired of
leave, of dawdling, of--almost everything. I'm wild to get to work--to
_work_ again, Mrs. Ray! That's what a man must have."

All the old strength and repose of manner had gone. She was shocked and
troubled at the change, and hurried on in her words lest he should see
it.

"And how is my boy--our little Jim? And--I hope Mrs. Dwight is well,
and--we're to see her soon," she ventured.

"Mrs. Dwight is looking remarkably well, though she and I are anxious
about her mother. Indeed, I had hoped to find dispatches--or
something--here from Major Farrell," and surely Dwight's face betrayed
rather more than his words. "Jimmy's in fine trim," he hurried on. "They
got to be fast friends voyaging. They were up on deck all the homeward
way, whereas I'm a very poor sailor. I could hardly, hold up my head
from the time we left Gibraltar."

"I'm glad of that--friendship," said Marion gravely, guardedly, for
already, in the friendship Minneconjou had been hearing of, little Jim
was not included. The _Hohenzollern_, after a stop-over at Algiers, had
been boarded at Gibraltar by two crestfallen gentlemen in khaki and a
quandary. The transport had preceded the liner into the shadow of the
sleeping li