Berkley, secretly amused, was aware of several cadaverous convalescents haunting the bushes above, dodging the eyes of this pretty nurse whom one and all adored, and whom they now beheld, with jealous misgivings, in intimate and unwarrantable tete-a-tete with a common and disgustingly healthy cavalryman. Then his weather-tanned features grew serious. The sunny moments slipped away as the sunlit waters slipped under the bridge; a bird or two, shy and songless in their moulting fever, came to the stream to drink, looking up, bright eyed, at the two who sat there in the mid-day silence. One, a cardinal, ruffled his crimson crest, startled, as Berkley moved slightly. "The Red Birds," he said, half aloud. "To me they are the sweetest singers of all. I remember them as a child, Letty." After a while Letty rose; her thin hand lingered, on his shoulder as she stood beside him, and he got to his feet and adjusted belt and sabre. "I love to be with you," she said wistfully. "It's only because I do need a little more sleep that I am going back." "Of course," he nodded. And they retraced their steps together. He left her at the door of the quaint, one-storied stone building where, she explained, she had a cot. "You _will_ come to see me again before you go back to your regiment, won't you?" she pleaded, keeping one hand in both of hers. "Of course I will. Try to get some sleep, Letty. You're tremendously pretty when you've had plenty of sleep." They both laughed; then she went indoors and he turned away across the road, under the windows of the ward where Ailsa was on duty, and so around to his store-room dwelling-place, where he sat down on the cot amid the piles of boxes and drew from his pocket the crumpled sheets of the letter that Ailsa had given him. The handwriting seemed vaguely familiar to him; he glanced curiously down the page; his eyes became riveted; he reddened to the roots of his hair; then he deliberately began at the beginning, reading very carefully. The letter had been written several weeks ago; it was dated, and signed with Hallam's name: "MY DEAR MRS. PAIGE: "Only my solemn sense of duty to all pure womanhood enables me to indite these lines to you; and, by so doing, to invite, nay, to encourage a cruel misunderstanding of my sincerest motives. "But my letter is not dictated by malice or inspired by the natural chagrin which animates a man of spirit when he reflects upon the undeserved humiliation which he has endured from her who was once dearer to him than life itself. Mine is a nature susceptible and sensitive, yet, I natter myself, incapable of harbouring sentiments unworthy of a gentleman and a soldier. "To forgive, to condone, is always commendable in man; but, madam, there is a higher duty men owe to womanhood--to chaste and trusting womanhood, incapable of defending itself from the wiles and schemes which ever are waiting to ensnare it.