and worn
lately, though only those who know him well could tell he was carrying a
heavy load of anxiety. He has always been kind to me, and it hurt,
horribly, to refuse to meet his wishes when he almost pleaded with me."

The scent of summer seemed to have faded out of the air, the golden rays
that beat in between the great trunks lost their brightness, and only one
way of escape from the situation presented itself to me as again the
refrain of the ballad jingled through my memory. It was also a way that
suited me. If Grace and I could not be married with the Colonel's consent,
we could without it; and I thanked Providence that she need suffer no
actual hardships at Fairmead now, while with her advice and encouragement
the future looked brilliant. We could reach the flag station in two hours
if we started at once. And then, with a chill, I remembered my promise to
the Colonel, and that I stood, as it were, on a parole of honor. Yet a
rash promise seemed a small thing to wreck two lives; and, saying nothing,
I set my teeth tightly as I remembered hearing my father once say long
ago, "I am thankful that, if we have our failings, none of us has ever
broken a solemn promise." Martin Lorimer too--and some called him keen, in
distinction to scrupulous--I remembered, accepted a draft he had been
clearly tricked into signing, and duly met it at maturity, though, when
the affair was almost forgotten, he made the man who drew it suffer. And
so the inward struggle went on, until there were beads of perspiration on
my forehead and Grace said, "Ralph, you look deathly. Are you ill?"

I did not answer, and was afterward thankful that perhaps fate intervened
to save me, for I almost felt that Grace would have yielded to pressure
then. There were footsteps in the forest, and, as instinctively we drew
back behind a fir, Colonel Carrington walked savagely down an open glade.
He passed close to us, and, believing himself alone in that solitude, had
thrown off the mask. His face was drawn and haggard, his hands were
clenched, and for once I read fear of something in his eyes; while Grace
trembled again as she watched him, and neither of us spoke until he
vanished among the firs.

"Ralph," she said quietly, "twice I have seen him so when he did not know
it. Perhaps it was meant that this should happen, for now I know that
even were there no other obstacle I could not leave him. Sweetheart, could
you expect the full duty to her husband from