"Why, is he ill? I wondered that he was not at supper with us." Dorothy spoke quickly, her voice trembled, and her brother saw that she was weeping. He followed them into the room and closed the door. Then he turned to Dot, and taking her by the hand, asked tenderly, "What is troubling you, my dear child?" She gave a great sob and threw herself upon his breast. "'T is because of what he just said--as we left him. It made me realize that I am soon to go away across the sea from you--from all of you," she exclaimed passionately. "Oh--how can I bear it!" "'T is somewhat late, little sister, to think of that," her brother replied, caressing her curly head with the loving touch she had known ever since the childhood days. Then bending his lips close to her ear, he whispered, "See--you are making him unhappy." At this she glanced over her shoulder at her husband, who had walked to the hearth, and stood looking into the fire. "Come, little girl, cheer up," said Jack, "for to-night, at least. You are to have a little visit with him before he returns to his quarters. And before to-morrow noon he will be on the road to Boston." With a long, sobbing sigh, she released him; then, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, she said with a wan smile, "It is hard--cruelly hard, to have one's heart so torn in opposite ways." He knew her meaning, and thought, as he went away, how small was their own grief compared with that of poor Hugh, who, utterly unmanned, had immured himself in his quarters. Dorothy stole to the hearth, where stood the silent figure of her husband; and as he still did not speak, she ventured to reach out and steal a timid hand within the one hanging by his side. His fingers instantly prisoned it in a close clasp, and so they remained for a time looking silently into the fire. Presently he sighed, and drawing the chain and ruby ring from his pocket, said very gently, "Will you wear this ring, sweetheart, until such time as I can get one more suitable?" "Aye--but I'd sooner not wear any other," she replied, looking wistfully at him,--awed and troubled by this new manner of his. "Would you?" And he smiled as he fastened the chain about her neck. "Then I shall be obliged to have the half of it taken away, in order to make a proper fit for that small finger. But you must let me put on a plain gold band, as well, so that all may be in proper form." She caught his hand and laid it against her cheek, while the light of the burning wood caught in the ruby ring, making it gleam like a ruddier fire against the folds of her dark-green habit. "Why are you so unhappy?" she asked. "That I am not, sweet little wife," he answered, drawing her to him, "save when I see you unhappy." "But I am not unhappy," she protested, adding brokenly, "except that--that--"