"We are ordered post-haste to Colorado, Nina, to rescue what is left of Thornton's men. But for you I should have been left behind." "But for me!--left behind!" she cried. "Oh, Howard, Howard! have I only--only won you to send you into danger? Oh, my darling! Oh, God! Don't--don't go! They will kill you! It will kill me! Oh, what have I done? what have I done?" "Nina, hush! My honor is with the regiment. I _must_ go, child. We'll be back in a few weeks. Indeed, I fear 'twill all be over before we get there. _Nina_, don't look so! Don't act so! Think where you are!" But she had borne too much, and the blow came all too soon,--too heavy. She was wellnigh senseless when the Beaubien carriage came whirling into the fort and old Maman rushed forth in voluble and rabid charge upon her daughter. All too late! it was useless now. Her darling's heart was weaned away, and her love lavished on that tall, objectionable young soldier so soon to go forth to battle. Reproaches, tears, wrath, were all in order, but were abandoned at sight of poor Nina's agony of grief. Noon came, and the train, and with buoyant tread the gallant command marched down the winding road and filed aboard the cars, and Howard Jerrold, shame-stricken, humbled at the contemplation of his own unworthiness, slowly unclasped her arms from about his neck, laid one long kiss upon her white and quivering lips, took one brief look in the great, dark, haunting, despairing eyes, and carried her wail of anguish ringing in his ears as he sprang aboard and was whirled away. But there were women who deemed themselves worse off than Nina Beaubien,--the wives and daughters and sweethearts whom she met that morn in town; for when they got back to Sibley the regiment was miles away. For them there was not even a kiss from the lips of those they loved. Time and train waited for no woman. There were comrades battling for life in the Colorado Rockies, and aid could not come too soon. XVII.