happy except
as a soldier."

"That trade would be open to me whatever happened."

"In theory, yes; but in practice, if you had a wife who was under a
cloud you'd have to go under it, too. That's what it would come to in
the working-out."

She stood up from sheer inability to continue sitting still. The piece
of embroidery fell on the grass. Ashley smiled at her--a smile that was
not wholly forced, because of the thoughts with which she inspired him.
Her poise, her courage, the something in her that would have been pride
if it had not been nearer to meekness and which he had scarcely called
meekness before he felt it to be fortitude, gave him confidence in the
future. "She's stunning--by Jove!" It seemed to him that he saw her for
the first time. For the first time since he had known her he was less
the ambitious military officer seeking a wife who would grace a high
position than he was a man in love with a woman. Separating these two
elements within himself, he was able to value her qualities, not as
adornments to some Home or Colonial Headquarters House, but as of
supreme worth for their own sake. "People have only got to see her," he
said, inwardly, to which he added aloud:

"I dare say the cloud may not be so threatening, after all; and even if
it is, I should go under it with the pluckiest woman in the world."

She acknowledged this with a scarcely visible smile and a slight
inclination of the head. "Thank you; I'm foolish enough to like to hear
you say it. I think I _am_ plucky--alone. But I shouldn't be if I
involved anybody else."

"But if it was some one who could help you?"

"That might be different, but I don't know of any one who could. _You_
couldn't. If you tried you'd only injure yourself without doing me any
good."

"At the least, I could take you away from--from all this."

"No, because it's the sort of thing one can never leave behind. It's
gone ahead of us. It will meet us at every turn. You and I--and
papa--are probably by to-day a subject for gossip in half the clubs in
New York. To-morrow it will be the same thing in London--at the club you
call the Rag--and the Naval and Military--and your different Service
clubs--"

To hide the renewal of his dismay he pooh-poohed this possibility. "As a
mere nine days' wonder."

"Which isn't forgotten when the nine days are past. Long after they've
ceased speaking of it they'll remember--"

"They'll remember," he interrupted, fiercely, "that I ji