really stern man to deal with, a girl's strongest weapon is generally her weakness. His look softened a little at the mention of Gareth's love for us both, as I hoped it would.

"Don't let me frighten you, please. I am a gruff old soldier and a stern man of many sorrows; but a friend of Gareth's is a friend of mine--still;" and he held out his hand to me.

The sorrow in that one syllable, "still," went right to my heart.

"I am very silly and--weak, I know," I said, as I put my hand timidly into his and met his eyes with a feeble smile.

I could have sighed rather than smiled; for at that moment everything seemed eloquent to me of pathos. The dingy, unswept room, the dust accumulating everywhere, his unkempt hair and beard, his shabby clothes, the dirt on the hand which closed firmly on mine--everywhere in everything the evidences of neglect; the silent tribute to a sorrow too absorbing to let him heed aught else.

"What can I do for you?" he asked much more gently, after a pause.

"Oh please," I cried, nervously. "Let me try and collect my poor scattered wits. I ought not to have come, I am afraid."

"Don't say that. I am glad you have come. What could I be but glad to see one who was a friend of Gareth's?"

"_Was_ a friend. Is a friend, I hope, Colonel, and always will be. She always wanted me to come and see her home--but she was hardly ever here, was she? So she couldn't ask me."

Sharp, quick, keen suspicion flashed out of his eyes, but I was giggling so fatuously that it died away.

"Part of my sorrow and part of my punishment," he murmured.

I misunderstood him purposely. "Yes, she always looked on it as a kind of punishment. You see, she loved you so--and then of course we girls, you know what girls are, we used to tease her about it."

He winced and passed his hand across his fretted brows as if in pain.

"You don't know how it hurts me to hear that," he said, simply. "God help me. When did you see her last?"

I knew the anguish at the back of the eager look which came with the question. But I laughed as if I knew nothing. "Oh, ages ago now. Months and months--six months quite."

"Where? My God, 

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