He gave back the note, but closed his eyes and turned away. In the presence of Armstrong day after day, and in the recollection of Latrobe's dying face and the last parting touch of his stricken hand, Gray's eyes were opening to his own deplorable weakness. She plainly saw her power was going, if not gone. He had wrapped a silk handkerchief about the packet and still kept it, with his watch and purse beneath his pillow. He would not tell her where it lay. She smiled archly for the benefit of the attendant; but her eyes again eagerly claimed a look from his, her lips framed the word "to-morrow." But neither on that morrow nor yet the next day came her opportunity. The gallant fellow who had lain there for days, dumb and patient, but a barrier to her plans, had taken a turn for the worse, and she was again denied admission. Then came the tidings that the barrier was removed, the long fight was over; and the heartless woman actually rejoiced. Now at last she could talk to Will Gray; and when midnight came she knew that now at last she must, for Frank Garrison, worn and weary, returning late from the front, briefly announced that General Drayton purposed visiting the hospital the following afternoon, and long before noon--long before visiting hours, in fact, she was there with flowers as winsome as her smile, and some jelly as dainty as her own fair hands. She was there, and the instant the hour sounded was ushered in, and Billy Gray, propped on his pillows, was writing to his father, and alone. No time was to be lost. Any moment the attendant might return. She threw herself on her knees beside the homely, narrow cot, seized his hand in hers, and looked him in the face. "Where are they, Will?" she pleaded. "Quick! I must have them now!" But well she realized that the spell was broken--that the old fascination had died its death. Then it was useless to hint at love; and in a torrent of impassioned words she bade him think of all he owed her, appealed to his sense of gratitude and honor, and there, too, failed, for, admitting all she claimed, he clumsily, haltingly, yet honestly told her he saw now that it was all for an object, all done in the hope that he might become her instrument for the recovery of those compromising letters; and now that fate had delivered them into his hands he was bound by honor and his promise--unheard, unspoken perhaps, but all the same his promise--to the dead to give them to General Drayton. Then rising in fury and denunciation, she played her last trump. Trembling from head to foot, pale with baffled purpose and with growing dread, she bent over him, both hands clinched. "You mad fool!" she cried. "Do you know what I can do--will do--unless you give them to me here and now? As God hears me, Will Gray, I will give that other packet to General Drayton myself and swear that Colonel Canker was right--that you _were_ the thief he thought you, and that I got those letters from you."