soon as the man had gone, I bathed and dressed quickly, in order to
be ready if he brought back word that I might be allowed to see Eagle. I
didn't care whether I had breakfast or not; but time dragged on, and
nothing happened. For the sake of making dull moments pass, I rang for
coffee and a roll. It was early still, and Mrs. Dalziel and Milly were
doubtless trying to make up for their disturbed night by taking an extra
rest.

The tray appeared, and I ate and drank what the choking in my throat
would let me swallow, but there was no sign yet of the messenger. I
calculated how long it ought to take him to reach the camp on the
bicycle he had mentioned; how long to do the errand; how long to return;
and still there was nearly an hour unaccounted for. I was so restless
and miserable that I could have shrieked. I walked up and down the
little white-and-green room as if it were a cage, but soon all my
strength had gone from me. I sat on the window seat, staring out as I
had stared in the night, hoping now to catch sight of a man on a
bicycle.

At last, when I had begun to feel shut in, and only half alive, like the
Lady of Shalott, as though nothing could ever happen in my life again, I
jumped up at the sound of a knock on the door. It was the messenger. My
heart bounded when he took from his pocket a letter, but only to fall at
seeing a hotel envelope with my own handwriting on it.

"I'm sorry, miss," the man said, "but I couldn't get to Captain March. I
went everywhere and tried asking a lot of folks, but couldn't find out
nothing. They wouldn't let me into the camp, even, much less to the
gentleman's tent, so I can't tell you whether he's there or not. I did
my best, but the army's different from civil life. When they say 'no'
they mean 'no' and there ain't no goin' around it, or they prods you
with one of them bayonets."

"Surely you haven't come back without any news?" I cried. "You must have
heard _something_!"

"Not a thing at the camp, except what I've just told you, miss," the
messenger persisted. "I hung around, and whenever I seen some chap going
in, if I could get him to speak I asked questions till they begun to
take me for one of them newspaper guys. It was only when I seen the
stunt was no good I chucked it and come back with your letter. There's
just one thing I did hear, but not in camp. 'Twas outside the hotel, as
I stopped my wheel. I met an old soldier from the Fort I'd been
acquainted with a good