He was on duty in the judge-advocate's office of the department, as has been said, and had been ordered off on a court-martial. He was back in two weeks, and more work went through that typewriter, and then came days which he spent in study at the Lambert Library, and pages of memoranda and notes which he read to her at her office, which were faithfully stenographed and promptly, accurately typewritten, and there were soon some evening walks home,--several of them,--and Forrest found the way curiously short as compared with the original estimate. He was deeply interested in his work at head-quarters, but the detail was only to last a month or two longer, for then the regular incumbent would have returned from the long leave of absence granted him on account of ill health, and then Forrest himself purposed spending some months abroad, all arrangements for his leave having been already consummated. One afternoon at the library Mr. Wells came and seated himself by the lieutenant's side. They had had many a long chat together, and were fast friends. "I'm out of luck," said Wells. "I've seen it coming for months, and ought to have been prepared. My typewriter has given me warning." "Going to be married, I suppose?" "Yes, and within six weeks. She's a girl I simply can't replace." "Why not?" "Because in my work only a well-educated and highly intelligent girl will answer. I have to dictate sometimes fifty letters a day filled with strange names and technicalities and foreignisms, and there's no time to consult dictionaries and the like,--no leisure, half the time, to read over the letters submitted for my signature. I must trust to my typewriter; and girls educated up to that standard come too high for our salary. I gradually taught Miss Stockton what she knows, so she was content with sixty dollars a month, but I can't get one who can do as well for a hundred, which is more by forty than the directors will allow me." Forrest was silent a moment. "It is work that demands all a girl's time, I suppose?" he ventured. "Yes, every bit of it from nine to five, and often to six. She has her evenings at home, however, unless some of our library assistants are sick; then she would have to help at the shelves." "If you are in no great hurry, will you hold the offer open one week? I know a g--a lady, I should say, who is intelligence and accuracy combined, and who might take it. She has done much work for me, and I know her worth." "Would she come for sixty dollars, do you suppose?" "I will ask her," said Forrest, guardedly. He well knew how glad his hard-working typewriter would be to have so permanent and pleasant a station. He more than suspected that many men who came to the busy office in the heart of the city were far from respectful. He remembered how his blood boiled one afternoon when he found a bulky fellow, his hat on the back of his head, his legs outstretched, and a vile cigar tiptilted in his mouth, sitting leering beside her desk.