"We've had to step in between two fires many a time before," said old Kenyon, "and we'll have to do it many a time again. Any of you fellows who like that sort of thing may welcome this change of station, but I don't." And, indeed, marching orders had come. The autumn shaking up was distributing regiments anew, and once more Kenyon's battalions were striding through the Chicago streets,--Forrest, after sixteen years of subaltern life, wearing at last the new shoulder-straps of the captaincy. Cranston and his squadron, still retained within supporting distance of the old homestead, eagerly welcomed their comrades of the riot days, and no sooner were they fairly settled down in the fine quarters at Sheridan than the new captain was out of uniform and into civilian dress and speeding townward,--"to see Wells," he said. Forrest lived with Cranston a few days while getting his own quarters in readiness, and was there to help the major welcome home his wife on her return from Europe late in October. Going to town "to see Wells" seemed to prove a bootless errand, for he came back with gloom in his dark brown eyes,--very pathetic gloom, Mrs. Cranston called it, and she, who had early gone to town to call on Mrs. Wells, began going rather more frequently than ever the major had contemplated, so interested was she in Mrs. Wells's boarder. "I want to know her well enough to be able to talk to her," she explained to her husband; but Cranston demurred. Possibly he knew from old experiences that one way not to influence a girl in favor of a friend was for Margaret to set to work to try. With the caution born of a quarter of a century of married bliss, however, he did not remind his better half of previous experiments. He meekly suggested that, as Forrest was likely to remain on duty all winter within besieging distance, it might be well to leave him and the lady to work out their own destiny. "But it's so absurd, Wilbur!" said Margaret. "He is deeply, honestly, utterly in love with her, and she's worthy of every bit of it, if I'm any judge of a girl, and if she isn't careful she'll drive him away or anger him with her refusals to hear him. Why, she has refused even to see him, Mrs. Wells tells me, and--it's nothing but stubborn pride." Evidently, therefore, these two dames had been putting their heads together and were now in the combination to force Jenny to surrender. Yet Jenny was right, knew she was right, and was to be moved neither by Forrest's pleadings nor by his friends' reproaches. There had been one long and painful interview between her and her lover soon after his return, and then very gently but very firmly she had told him that the matter must end then and there. She had asked him one question, and only one, in the course of that interview, and he could not answer her: "Mr. Forrest, what welcome would your mother, your sister, extend to me, a working-girl?"