"You needn't. He won't come. Tell him I waited until 11:30." Then Loring shut the door and left. He had many an hour later in which to think over his final interview with the aide. A most unwelcome duty was that second call to Petty. He would rather be kicked than go to Loring and say he was released from arrest and free to go; perhaps he thought the kick forthcoming if he went. But Loring treated him with the same contemptuous coolness as he had earlier in the night. Nor did Loring seem either elated or surprised. "Damn the man!" said Petty. "I'd give a month's pay to tell him something that would stir him!" Petty could easily have done that had he seen fit to mention that the General had received a visit from the Lady Superior with a young girl from the convent of the good Gray Sisters. But that was a mysterious affair that even the General had seen fit to say nothing further about, even to Loring, who was most concerned. It was a matter that gentle and gracious woman herself never referred to when the Engineer at ten the next morning presented his card and was ushered into her presence. She was most courteous. There was peace and loving kindness ineffable in her placid face. There was infinite sympathy in her manner when she presently met and led in to him a pallid little maid, who put a long slim hand in Loring's as he smiled upon her downcast, red-rimmed eyes. Struggle as she might for composure and strength, Pancha had evidently been sorely disturbed over something through the long watches of the night. Loring's heart reproached him as he realized how selfishly he had been engrossed for weeks, how little he had thought for her, of her who must be so lonely and homesick in her new sphere. He was almost shocked now at the pallor of her face, the droop and languor of the slender figure that was so buoyant and elastic those bright days aboard ship just preceding the catastrophe. What friends and chums they had become! How famously he was getting on with his Spanish! What a charming teacher she was, with her lovely shining eyes, her laughing lips, her glistening white teeth! She seemed happy as a queen then, and now--what had come over the child? "They are going to let me write to you, Pancha," he had told her, "and I shall write every month, but you will write to me long letters, won't you?" "_Si_," and the dusky little head bowed lower, and Pancha was withdrawing her hand. "You know I have no little sister," he went on. She did. She had learned all this and much more aboard ship, and remembered every word he had told her, very much more than he remembered. She knew far more about him than did he about her, but he looked far more interested now. The good gray sister was more than good; she was very busy at something away across the room, and Loring had drawn his little friend to the window.