And stay he did, refusing even a chance to go abroad the following spring, and devoting himself assiduously to his duties, although he shrank from society. They made him sometimes spend a quiet evening at Ray's or Blake's, where twice Miss Dade was found. But that young lady was quick to see that her hostess had been scheming, as loving women will. And then, when he went hoping to see her, yet half afraid, she came no more. They could not coax her. The early spring had taken him forth on long campaign. The ensuing fall had taken her to the far distant East, for gallant old Dade was breaking down. The doctors sent him on prolonged sick leave. Then was Fort Frayne indeed a desolate post to Beverly Field, and when midwinter came, and with it the news that Dade had but little while to live, he took counsel with Ray, and a month's leave, not much of which was spent in the South. The old regiment was represented at the sad and solemn little ceremony when the devoted husband, father and fellow soldier was laid at rest. Nor was Field a happier man when he rejoined from leave, and they all thought they knew why. Letters came, black-bordered, with Esther's superscription, sometimes, but only for Mrs. Blake or Mrs. Ray. There was never one for Field. And so a second summer came and went and a second September was ushered in, and in the flood of the full moonlight there was again music and dancing at Fort Frayne, but not for Field, not for Esther Dade. They were all talking of Nanette, Daughter of the Dakotas, and Esther, Daughter of the Regiment, as they called her in her father's Corps, and the mail came late from Laramie, and letters were handed round as tattoo sounded, and Mrs. Blake, eagerly scanning a black-bordered page, was seen suddenly to run in doors, her eyes brimming over with tears. Later that night Hogan tapped at Field's front door and asked would the lieutenant step over to Mrs. Ray's a minute, and he went. "Read that," said Mrs. Ray, pointing to a paragraph on the third page of the black-bordered missive that had been too much for Mrs. Blake. And he read: "Through it all Esther has been my sweetest comfort, but now I must lose her, too. Our means are so straitened that she has _made_ me see the necessity. Hard as it is, I must yield to her for the help that it may bring. She has been studying a year and is to join the staff of trained nurses at St. Luke's the first of October." For a moment there was silence in the little army parlor. Field's hands were trembling, his face was filled with trouble. She knew he would speak his heart to her at last, and speak he did:-- "All these months that she has been studying I've been begging and pleading, Mrs. Ray. _You_ know what I went for last winter,--all to no purpose. I'm going again now, if I have to stay a patient at St. Luke's to coax her out of it." But not until Christmas came the welcome "wire:"