"Do you mean that you are not--that you were not engaged to her?" The colonel had been gazing out over the swirling river; but now, with curious contraction of brows, with a strong light in his eyes, he had turned full on the young officer. "Engaged to her! Do you suppose I could have been--been such an ass if _she_ would have had me? No! She--she had too much sense." It was full a minute before Armstrong spoke again. For a few seconds he sat motionless, gazing steadily into Gray's handsome, blushing face; then he turned once more and looked out over the Pasig and the scarred level of the rice fields beyond. And the long slant of the sunshine on distant towers and neighboring roofs and copse and wall, and the unlovely landscape seemed all tinged with purple haze and tipped with gold. The blare of a bugle summoning the men to supper seemed softened by distance, or some new, strange intonation, and gave to the ugliest of all our service calls the effect of soft, sweet melody; and there was sympathy and genuine feeling in the deep voice as he once again held out his hand to Billy. "Forgive me, lad, for I judged you more harshly than you deserved." One lovely, summer-like evening, some five weeks later, in long, heaving surges the deep blue waves of the Pacific came lazily rolling toward the palm-bordered beach at Waikiki, bursting into snowy foam on the pebbly strand, and, softly hissing, swept like fleecy mantle up the slope of wet, hard-beaten sand, then broke, lapping and whirling, about the stone supports of the broad _lanai_ of one of the many luxurious homes that dot the curving line of the bay to the east of Honolulu. Dimly outlined in the fairy moonlight, the shadowy mountains of the Waianai Range lay low upon the western horizon. Eastward the bare, bold volcanic upheaval of Diamond Head gleamed in bold relief, reflecting the silver rays. Here and there through the foliage shone the soft-colored fires of Chinese lanterns, and farther away, along the concave shore, distant electric lights twinkled like answering signals to the stars in the vault of blue, and the "riding lights" of the few transports or warships, swinging at anchor on the tide. From a little grove of palms close to the low sea wall came the soft tinkle of guitar, and now and then a burst of joyous song, while under the spreading roof of the broad portico or _lanai_, the murmur of voices, the occasional ripple of musical laughter, the floating haze of cigarette smoke, told where a party of worshipers were gathered, rejoicing in the loveliness of nature and the night.