The more desperately wounded were left in the village with an adequate guard, the rest of the command departing with Major March. A temporary hospital was established in the convent. There were two doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not receive proper care from the two young surgeons. Bray was surprised and distressed; he could not misunderstand her motive. He had gone on caring for her without suspecting that there was or had been another man; she had not confided in him during those weary, pleasant months since they left San Francisco behind them. To learn the true situation so suddenly and unexpectedly stunned his sensibilities; he found difficulty in grasping the importance of the change an hour or two had made. He had fought valiantly, even exultantly, in the Pass that morning, her face ever before him, her words of praise the best spoils of the victory, should they win. He had come down to the village with joy and confidence in his heart, only to find that he was not, and could never be, anything to her, while the life or memory of this fallen comrade stood as a barrier. Bray's hour following the discovery that she had deliberately sought out and found this stricken private was the most bitter in his life. His pride suffered a shock that appalled him; his unconscious egotism, born of hereditary conquests, revolted against the thought that his progress toward her heart was to be turned aside by the intervention of a common soldier in the ranks. Gentleman though he was, he could not subdue the feeling of exultation that came over him when she approached with her plea. He knew that it was a base sense of power that made him feel that he could punish his pride's offender by either denying or granting her appeal. The attitude of self-sacrifice appealed to his wounded vanity; he was tempted to profit by an exhibition of his own pain and generosity. He went with her into the convent and to the pallet on which was stretched the long, still figure of Graydon Bansemer. A surgeon was standing near by, studying the grey face with thoughtful eyes. Bray's first glance at the suffering face sent a thrill of encouragement through his veins. The man was beyond all human help; the grip of death was already upon his heart.