oman had become a public nuisance.

It seems that the Patriotic Daughters of America were now out of
patience and the vice-president out of funds. It seemed that her brief
ascendancy had carried the lady to such an altitude as to dizzy her
brain and rob her of all sense of proportion. It seems that the surgeons
in charge of three hospitals had complained of her meddling, that
colonels of several regiments had discovered her to be the author of
letters to the home papers setting forth that neglect, abuse, and
starvation were driving their men to desertion or the grave. It seems
that the Red Cross had protested against her as the originator of
malignant stories at their expense, and it was evidently high time to
get rid of her, yet how could they if that case was to be tried? Zenobia
Perkins knew they could not and conducted herself accordingly. She came
this day to the Ayuntamiento to demand pay for what she termed her long
detention at Manila.

"You compel me to remain against my will because I'm an indispensable
witness," said she to the saturnine adjutant-general, beyond whom she
never now succeeded in passing. She was volubly berating him, to his
grim amusement, when the lattice doors from the corridor swung open and
two officers entered.

For nearly two minutes they stood waiting for a break in her tempestuous
flow of words, but as none came, the senior impatiently stepped forward
and the adjutant-general, looking up, sprang from his chair just as the
chief himself came hurrying out from the _sanctum sanctorum_ and greeted
the newcomers with cordially clasping hands. The lady too had risen.
This was another of those stuck-up star-wearers who at San Francisco as
much as told her she was a nuisance, and who wouldn't send her by
transport to Manila. Yet here she was in spite of them all, and the most
important woman on the island! Zenobia's face was flushed with triumph
that the star-wearer should be made to feel and see before she would
consent to leave the room.

"Well, I shall have to interrupt you gentlemen," said she, "for _my_
business won't keep if you propose to keep _me_. I want to know right
here and now, General Drayton, whether I'm to get my pay or not; if not,
I don't propose to wait another day in Manila, and you can get out of
the scrape the best way you know how. No one here but me could swear
that young man Foster was dead, and you know it."

"You've sworn to what isn't so, madame," interposed the