"'T was done for my own ease. Think you I could have ridden away, not knowing what risk or privation you might have to suffer in my absence?" "'T is only the greater cause for gratitude that you make your ease depend on ours." "That empties my packet of advices," said the aide; "and --and--unless you have something to tell me, I'll--we'll say a farewell and I'll rejoin the army." "Would that I could thank you, sir, as you deserve; but words mean so little that you have rendered me dumb," replied Janice, feelingly. "Can you not--Have you nothing else to say to me?" he begged pleadingly. "I--Indeed, I can think of nothing, Colonel Brereton," replied the maiden, very much flustered. "Then good-by, and may God prosper you," ended Jack, sadly, taking her hand and kissing it gently. He turned with obvious reluctance, and went toward the house, but before he had reached the hedge he quickly retraced his steps. "I--I could not force my suit upon you when I found you in such helplessness--not even when you gave me the purse--though none but I can know what the restraint meant in torture," he burst out; "and it seems quite as ungenerous to try to advantage myself now of your moment's gratefulness. But my passion has its limits of control, and go I cannot without--without-- Give me but a word, though it be a sentence of death to my heart's desire." Janice, whose eyes had been dropped groundward during most of this colloquy, gave the pleader a come-and-go glance, then said breathlessly, "I--'T is--Wha--wha--What would you wish me to say?" "What you can," cried the officer, impetuously. "I--I would--'T is my desire to--to say what you would have me." Both her hands were eagerly caught in those of the suppliant. "If you could--If--'T would be everything on earth-- more than life itself to me--could you but give me the faintest hope that I might win you. Have you such an abhorrence of me that you cannot give me the smallest guerdon of happiness?" "You err in supposing that I dislike you," protested Janice. "Then why do you refuse all that is dearest to me? Why turn from a devotion that would make your happiness its own?" "But I have n't," denied the girl, her heart beating wildly and her breath coming quickly. As the words passed her lips, she was impulsively yet tenderly caught in her lover's arms and drawn to him. "What have you done, then?" he demanded almost fiercely. "I--I--oh! I don't know," she gasped. "Then, as you have pity in you, grant my prayer?" For a moment Janice, with down-bent head, was silent. Then she raised her eyes to Jack's and said, "I will marry you, Colonel Brereton, if dadda will let me." LI A FAREWELL AND A WELCOME