[101]

“I hope,” said he to the lieutenant, “that you’ll join me. Dining alone is sometimes a tiresome business.”

But the other gestured in the negative.

“I had just finished when you rode up,” he said. “Pray go on, and pay no attention to me in that respect.”

George did as he was bidden; and he had already made considerable inroad upon the hot dishes from Mistress Trout’s kitchen when Herbert Camp spoke again.

“I should have thought,” said the latter, “that you would have come here as soon as you got ashore.”

“As it is,” returned George, “I am hours before my time.”

“Then a time was named?”

“To-night,” said George.

The other leaned back upon the settle and shielded his face from the fire; George’s efforts upon the logs had not been without[102] effect, for the blaze was now brisk and high; the sparks shot up the wide chimney in showers.

[102]

“At half after nine, I think,” said Lieutenant Camp.

“At nine exactly,” returned George.

The lieutenant here fell back into a long silence. He shielded his face from the heat with his hat and sat looking at the darting sparks as they leaped upward. George, as he proceeded with his dinner, watched him; the face was deeply shadowed by the upheld hat, but the young soldier’s attitude was full of meaning, the changing lights in his eyes spoke of a mind not at rest.

As he watched him George recalled old Merchant Camp’s words of the day before.

“But look you, young man,” he had said, “you are not the only one that feels the impulse of change. It has occurred to me many times of late that my will needs a bit of altering, too.”

Distinctly young Prentiss recalled the blank look that crossed Herbert Camp’s face at this saying. True, he had stammered something[103] about a mere matter of money having no effect upon a person of honor.

[103]

“But,” was the thought that crossed George’s mind, “the protest 

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