you've got what you
wanted--I'm leaving the army!" Between the bars he stretched out his
arms and held a hand toward Meehan and Standish. In the same dull,
numbed voice he continued.

"So, now," he went on, "that I've nothing to gain by it, I want to
swear to you and to this man here, that whether I hang, or go to jail,
or am turned loose, I will never, so help me God, take another drink."

Standish was holding the hand of the man who once had been his hero.
He clutched it tight.

"Aintree," he cried, "suppose I could work a miracle; suppose I've
played a trick on you, to show you your danger, to show you what might
come to you any day--does that oath still stand?"

The hand that held his ground the bones together.

"I've given my word!" cried Aintree. "For the love of God, don't
torture me. Is the man alive?"

As Standish swung open the cell door, the hero of Batangas, he who
could thrash any man on the isthmus, crumpled up like a child upon his
shoulder.

And Meehan, as he ran for water, shouted joyfully.

"That nigger," he called to Bullard, "can go home now. The lieutenant
don't want him no more."

EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS

As a rule, the instant the season closed Aline Proctor sailed on the
first steamer for London, where awaited her many friends, both English
and American--and to Paris, where she selected those gowns that on and
off the stage helped to make her famous. But this particular summer
she had spent with the Endicotts at Bar Harbor, and it was at their
house Herbert Nelson met her. After Herbert met her very few other men
enjoyed that privilege. This was her wish as well as his.

They behaved disgracefully. Every morning after breakfast they
disappeared and spent the day at opposite ends of a canoe. She,
knowing nothing of a canoe, was happy in stabbing the waters with her
paddle while he told her how he loved her and at the same time, with
anxious eyes on his own paddle, skilfully frustrated her efforts to
drown them both. While the affair lasted it was ideal and beautiful,
but unfortunately it lasted only two months.

Then Lord Albany, temporarily in America as honorary attache to the
British embassy, his adoring glances, his accent, and the way he
brushed his hair, proved too much for the susceptible heart of Aline,
and she chucked Herbert and asked herself how a woman of her age could
have seriously considered marrying a youth just out of Harvard! At that
time